Clandestine
by songsora
Summary: After Hank discovers that Boris has a genetic illness, he disregards Boris' partiality toward privacy and asks Divya to help him tend to the secretive German. Divya/Boris.
1. Prologue: Medical Obligation

"Divya, please. If you won't do it for me, do it for him."

Divya uncrossed her arms, placing them on her hips instead. "Give me a reason why I should, Hank," she replied. "We have clients to look after. What should happen if there were an emergency? You certainly couldn't rely on Evan for any help…"

"He needs supervision, Divya. He's sick…very sick," Hank lowered his voice, looking around as if suspecting the man in question to be nearby. "And I know he won't like it but, I have a way of talking him into things…I'm his doctor; he knows he needs to listen to me if he wants my help."

She considered this for a moment. Hank had divulged Boris' routine for secrecy to her before, but she'd never known that his stubbornness would prove to be potentially fatal. But it seemed so ironic…the benefactor, of sorts, becoming the patient, and yet as she thought of it, the more Boris' interest in Hank Med's flourishing made sense. He had needed help, and was much too proud and covert to share such a painful verity with anyone.

"Fine," she said, at last, and Hank gave a small sigh of relief. She held up her hand, "but if there is an emergency, even a small one, I will want involvement, Hank."

"I know," he replied, offering her an assuaging smile. "I won't hesitate to call if there is one. Deal?"

She smiled as well. "Deal."

* * *

It took only a few moments to reach the house, and when she arrived, it was utterly bereft of activity. No sounds, no shuffles of busy feet across the polished floor, and not even the hushed, surreptitious flow of Boris' articulated accent behind the door.

It seemed a fortress to Divya…a fortress of lies, of deceit, and a life of self-acclaimed loneliness which she ultimately feared so much in her own future. A part of her, the small part which did not feel intrusive in this messily concocted plan of Hank's, felt as if she was doing him a service in involving herself in his condition; the other half felt completely opposed to such an informal scheme and, knowing she favored her own privacy, intruding in on Boris' furtive lifestyle.

She gave a determined knock and, before long, the sound of footsteps echoed off the decorated walls. _At last_, she mused…there was some life within the manor after all.

Dieter, the manservant, allowed her in without question, and this came off as strange to Divya, as even the manners of Boris had rubbed off on the butler as well. Questions on behalf of his employer had become a custom for the man, and Divya could not help but assume that she was being expected.

As if prompted by her thoughts, a familiar voice came from the nearby parlor, the same fluid ease and articulation of charm which she had heard the night of the party. "I've been anticipating your arrival, Divya," he paused, and the sound of his footsteps resonated off the masked plaster. "Hank contributed his fair warning in exchange for allowing you in. I'm afraid the terms were that I offer you a drink without first questioning your presence here."

"Yes, well, Hank has seemed to forget that I don't drink on the job." She said decidedly, tightening her grip on her purse.

His brow raised as he walked into the light, the silver of his hair gleaming beneath the gold-washed glow. "You are here on business, I presume," he probed lightly. "On Hank's behalf…or my own?"

"He did not tell you?" She huffed slightly, shifting her weight onto one leg. "I expect he has put the burden of explaining this situation to you on me."

"I'm afraid so but…in Hank's defense, he was rudely interrupted, and therefore…the task has been appointed to you in his stead," he waved his hand, to invite her in, and led her to the parlor room, where he poured himself a drink.

"There is not much to explain, Boris, except that you have been wrong to keep your ailment from him. He wants to help you, but if you do not let him…then _I'm _afraid that this whole business, of me keeping an eye on you for him, will prove to be futile."

He gave a quirk of his brow and threw back his head, drowning his anger in being discovered with the smooth, consoling taste of alcohol. The glass, however, caught the brunt of his indignation. "Yes, well, Hank has a most irritating inability to keep secrets…secret."

"Like I have said before," Divya replied. "It is all in hopes of keeping you alive long enough to diagnose your problem," she began to dig through the duffel bag of medical supplies which she brought with her. "I will need another blood sample, which I can assure you…we will keep out of the way of inquisitive eyes."

He cast her a sidelong glance, as if questioning her and she rolled her eyes slightly. "Mostly, meaning Evan of course…who cannot keep his trap shut to save _his _life."

More alcohol was poured, and Boris turned away from Divya's expectant eyes. "I will confess I do not like this arrangement at all," he said, and paused to drain his glass. "But I…I have the utmost confidence Hank, and if this is what he must do then…I will comply. Let us only hope that he does not fail my confidence in him."

"I can assure you that he won't." Divya countered forcefully, and earned an equivocal glance from Boris in return. He then replaces his empty glass to the small tray on which it was settled before, and crosses the room to ease his weary body into the sitting chair, rolling up his sleeve. Divya took this as another act of compliance and removed her supply of needles from the medical bag.

"If I may explain the schedule…"

"By all means," he said, watching with indifference as she pulled on a pair of white, plastic gloves. "Do not feel obligated to repress your explanations."

She cast him a short-tempered look, feeling the scathing disregard in his statement which had been cleverly disguised in eloquent charm and phrase. "I will _repress_ nothing, thank you," she replied, and pulled a syringe from its sterilized bag. "Hank has asked me only to check on you, keep watch on your vitals and routine blood work. I will only come an hour every day, as Hank has requested, and he will make his own visitation as well," she paused and softly prodded the skin for an available vein. "There is also medication which can be administered that will help your muscle contractions, if you will not worsen your condition by administering them yourself."

Boris gave no reply, and Divya could tell, as she gently slid the needle into his arm, that he was quite…opposed to the idea of his privacy being invaded, especially by that of a woman who was most certainly _not _his doctor.

She could only hope, as the room reverted to a thin, uneasy silence, that Hank's idea would not prove to be more of a bother than he'd planned.

* * *

AN: Hey there...this is just an idea, something of an AU post-finale plot, since I'm sure they wouldn't even take the idea of a Divya/Boris ship into consideration. However, it will be written for fun, and please forgive the shortness of this chapter...it's somewhat of a prologue.

Feedback is welcomed! Thanks for reading.


	2. Chapter I: The German Patient

In regards to HankMed and its usual hectic schedule, Divya found herself quite without something to do. She prayed for a broken leg, tachycardia, asphyxiation – anything to purge the tedium that had settled over Boris' guest house which, in turn, belonged temporarily to Hank and Evan.

At first, the ideas for her various scenarios, ones in which she would actually have the chance to act on her abilities, were abundant; but as the guilt settled in, she gave a groan of defeat and began to sift through her old phone messages, examining them closely for anything that may, in the pale morning light, hold some resemblance to a medical emergency. But there were none.

Footsteps, at first long-strides which moved at a determined pace, halted before they could reach the kitchen.

With Divya's back turned, she could only suppose who the mysterious body behind her was – Boris, which she severely hoped against, Evan, whom she even more severely _prayed_ against, and Hank, whom she'd been expecting for the last ten minutes.

"Divya?"

She inwardly thanked the heavens as she recognized Hank's innately curious intonation of voice. With an amiable smile, she turned on the barstool to greet him and followed, with her eyes, as he began to rummage through the fridge for breakfast.

"What are you doing here so early?" He absently checked his watch, and his curious brow deepened into a frown. "I wasn't expecting you for another half hour."

"Lack of a schedule and patients has a very conveinient effect on one's punctuality," she quipped lightly, and settled her dormant phone on the island countertop. With a sigh, she regarded the carton of eggs he had opened and said, "have I any hope for usefulness today?"

"None that I can recall. I'm doing a few follow ups for some low risk patients, but nothing I should really need you for," Hank replied casually, cracking one egg and allowing only the whites slide into the bowl beneath. "But what I do recall is assigning you and your particular skills to Boris…not to sound like a tyrant or anything but…the man needs looking after. Especially with his habit for being evasive. I can't risk his being without medical attention, as much as I know he hates having his privacy invaded."

"Yes, so you have told me," Divya replied. "But I was hoping that I could delay his check up for at least a little while."

"Why?" He removed his eyes from the bowl of egg whites, a certain look in them that predicted an aggressive reaction if he should recieve an answer he did not like. He set his hands firmly down on either side of the porcelain. "He hasn't been…rude, has he?"

"Unfortunately, Boris has a rather uncanny ability to mask his insolence." She heaved a small, wistful sigh. "I can accuse him of nothing but feigned hospitality and masculine charm."

"How awful for you," Hank chuckled. "Whatever should I have done if I had to spend an entire fifteen minutes with the man out of a twenty-four hour day?"

"Luckily for you, you survived the brutality of the man's stubbornness," she said. "Then again, he seems to have a sort of…admiration for you. Perhaps you are exempt from his obstinacy?"

"Quite the opposite." Hank smirked as he let the eggs simmer in the hot pan. "No one is exempt, even his favorites. But, he'll come around…just be nice and…give him time. He doesn't trust easily."

"Gee, you could have fooled me with that little minor detail. I suppose I should be off then…my ward awaits with bated breath."

Just then, as she readied to leave, new footsteps arrived from the direction of the bedrooms, and it was an arrival which Divya had dreaded all along.

Evan appeared in the living room, looking disheveled. His hair was reduced to a cluster of unruly, rather unsightly coils, a different spectacle altogether from his slick, nonchalant appearance, and he blinked sleepily at her, as if having difficulty believing his own bleary eyes. "Div?" He peered across the room, shuffling closer as he stared quizzically at her. "Am I awake or…is this really just a nightmare?"

"Do not start with me, Evan," she snapped, and pointed one accusatory finger at him before sliding her purse over her arm. "I am not in the mood to deal with your childish manners, and I am leaving anyway. Goodbye Hank...don't forget that I am available for your use if you should need my assistance…"

She left the room as hurriedly as was possible in her bothersome heels, and the sound of their clatter faded as she walked further and further away. Hank had afforded her a reciprocated 'goodbye' as she had retreated, but did nothing to stop her.

Evan, however, had been walking ever so slowly toward the island, his attention on her abrupt dismissal. He had only just reached the barstool as the engine of her car, muffled by the walls, roared to life and gradually faltered away.

He sat down and pointed toward the window, indicating the girl who had only just left. Looking at Hank, he gave a complacent smirk. "That woman adores me."

* * *

Divya felt rather ridiculous, driving up in her car when she could have easily walked the short distance. She owed it to the desperation of escaping Evan as fast as was possible, and walking didn't seem an adequate escape route when he could have easily caught up with her, if he wanted to.

Heels, also, had been an excuse in considering a walk…but she figured it would have been futile as she put the medical bag over her arm and clicked the locks closed; she looked down on her small white wedges with an almost accusatory glance, and supposed that she could have taken them off. If she'd _wanted_ to. If she'd even _thought_ of such a simple concept in the first place. Unluckily for her, Evan Lawson had an insalubrious way of scrambling her brain and making it hard for her to think...she couldn't have thought of it anyway, not with _Evan_ in the room, his persistent mouth present.

It was an inner battle that was short-lived, however, as she began to notice the commotion going on around the main house. There seemed to be a lot of men with furniture, alcohol and…she was sure that she recognized _party_ decorations in the midst of the clamoring men.

_Damn that man…he is stricken with illness and he has the gall to host a party?_

_It must be a frontage…and a pathetic one at that. He's doing this to keep the vultures from prodding and imposing nosy questions after his lack of socialization._

She began searching for the master of the house at once, inspecting each man that passed so thoroughly that, if she at all cared, could have been easily mistaken for promiscuous intentions. And since most of the men she encountered seemed either bald or extremely young, she began to look specifically for silver hair and sharpened her ears for the recognizable charismatic voice of her notoriously infuriating patient.

At last, she found him by his small pond, chattering with Dieter in his native German with one hand placed in a slipshod manner on his hip. His expression was comprised of pure placidity, not a line or curve out of place on his countenance – but as Divya marched up to him, looking rather put out by the activity of the place, she reckoned that was all about to change in a matter of minutes.

He turned to her as he saw her coming, but made no effort to greet her or even acknowledge her existence. She could have been a ghost to him and she would not have known it by the blank stare which he fixated on her.

"What on earth are you doing?" She demanded upon reaching him. His eyes, cold and aloof, vaguely inspected her figure, from her painted peach toes to her face, and it was done so smoothly that she could barely accuse him of anything but properly regarding her sudden appearance.

"Redecorating." He answered vaguely, and glanced at his watch; she recognized the transference of his attention as another dismissal on his behalf, but Divya was a woman that would not be pushed aside so easily...at least, she thought so. Boris could not say he thought the same.

She gave an unseemly snort of disapproval. "So I am supposed to believe that a refined and elusive man, who puts his privacy and reputation in the highest of regard, has decided to refurbish his house in the image of that of an irresponsible and raucous college frat boy?"

A slight smirk of amusement began to trace the edges of his composure."Yes, well…it _was_ the intent upon my giving you that exact answer in the first place."

"Come, now, my mysterious German friend…you can do better than that." She crossed her arms and considered his attire, no more sophisticated than his usual suit and tie. "You're having a party, isn't that right?"

"I am…quite afraid I have neither time nor patience to respond to your inquiries, Miss Katdare," he said, and even these words were given reticently. He turned his back on her and resumed his conversation with Dieter in German, who had been standing by during the small confrontation with little to no sign of discomfiture in witnessing it.

Divya walked between the two and set her eyes defiantly on the much taller man, who gave only the slightest look of irritation, and even that expression failed to reach his pale, austere eyes.

"Whether you have the time and patience or not is irrelevant," she retorted viciously, and then gestured to the house. "You and I are not to be disturbed for at least fifteen minutes while I am completing your check up, is that clear? I am quite sure that your manservant will be more than able in handling the…current affairs while you are detained, since he has been so proficient in dealing with your furtive nature for such a very long time."

At first, Boris did not say anything. He merely let the air suffer its tense aura until Divya felt as if she would snap without some method of response to her inflexible demands. A simple _no_ would have sufficed for her – she could have just as easily sedated him and completed the necessary procedures after he lay cold and asleep on the ground, _against_ his will. But the plan seemed rather unconventional and since a drug would have to be administered to _make_ him sleep, she would hardly risk tainting his results. A good punch in the face would knock him out, and would have satisfied her annoyance with him, if she issued a strong enough force to render him unconscious – but that, too, seemed to have the same ability to harm his untouched vitals.

"Fifteen minutes is all I will afford," he replied solemnly, and then turned to Dieter, who stood dutifully behind his employer without even a grimace on his face. "_Fortsetzen."_

"_Jawhol.," _replied the man, and he bowed quickly away before proceeding toward the house. Boris' eyes never left the retreating figure, following him with a certain frustration which Divya could only guess was a result of her insistence.

"If you are so...adamantly resolved." He then motioned toward the small pond with a brandished hand. "Shall we, then?"

She, however, refused his offer. "I recall telling you we were not to be disturbed _inside _the house. It is not sanitary out here."

"As insanitary as a house in which bodies that are not my own roam the corridors and clean the furniture?"

"And to think that _the_ Boris Rabanisch of noble German blood does not keep his royal castle spic and span?" She inclined her head. "Whatever shall we commoners do if the noblemen cannot keep their dwellings nice and..._tidy_?"

"Despite what thoughts of me you entertain, Divya, I am unable to maintain the state of consistency I desire." He pushed gently past her and made for the stone bench, which was stationed before the pond, like a grey-washed sentry looking over the tranquil water. "It requires…great lengths to be taken in order to attain even such an imperfect privacy as I have established here; I do not doubt that perfect discretion is quite…mythical. There are always loose tongues and uncalculated mistakes that must be accounted for and are not…simply because they cannot be."

"Do you always speak in such riddles?" She followed him to his perch, allowing him to ease slowly into the seat as she sifted through her supplies. "With so many vague insinuations to follow, it is quite hard enough to comprehend you as it is."

"Articulation is a lost art." He replied airily.

"Yes, and so is the art of seduction, but you do not see much of that now, do you?" She slipped the stethoscope over her neck and gestured to him to unbutton his shirt. He duly complied.

He seemed pleased by her rebuttal, though the manifestations of the appreciation were indistinct at best."I suppose not," he considered, and then examined her figure again. "But I don't expect one should come in contact with many physician's assistants graced with affluent families either. Am I not also right in this?" He prodded wearily, allowing his hands to drift to the emptiness beside him on the bench as she positioned the stethoscope over her ears. In response to his pointed observation, she cast him a malevolent look.

"_Associate_, actually," she countered maliciously, and pressed the bell of the scope to his chest a little too hard, which caused him to flinch. Her voice lowered, "and no more talking….if you please."

From what she could percieve, everything seemed quite undisturbed beneath the pigheaded façade and pale skin, and though Divya was not especially worried about the vitals, they were necessary. "Roll up your sleeve," she ordered absently and dug through her bag, carefully as was possible, for her sphygmomanometer as he obeyed the command, quietly pulling back the obstructing sleeve. After, of course, he'd finished rebuttoning his shirt.

As she worked, diligently, Boris deliberated her appearance for quite some time. His eyes, darkened by the shadow of his furrowed brow, traced the expressions which caught her mouth, her eyes, and even softly scathed the curve of her nose. Out of curiosity as to how this woman actually worked, he began to contemplate to himself which methods would be most successful in persuading her to exchange her disdain for something less…importunate. Perhaps benevolence or even a level of respect which he had been so fortunate as to develop with Hank would satisfy him.

And he knew just how to tame her.

"This…redecorating business of mine," he began, and she arched one thin, dark brow inquisitively, receiving his small bout of conversation without offense, but with curiosity. "There may be a time, later this evening, when I might be in need of your assistance."

"Assisting in what…participating in the growing population of drunkards and conversationalists that are to fill your house tonight? To assist you in making your excuse of a party seem veritable explanation for your...rather unorthodox disappearance?"

His eyes narrowed so pensively that it could have been mistaken for a reaction to the slow drift of sunlight which filled the small clearing of the pond. But there came an indistinct smirk of satisfaction again, and she found him to be merely diverted by her annoyance.

_How comical, I was hoping for a much more…lively reaction._

"Deem your inclusion by anything that suits your fancy," he replied, rising from the bench. "But you are welcome, nonetheless. Hank and Evan are also integrated into the invitation, as always. Good day, Miss Katdare."

She watched as he walked away, her clipboard still balanced on her knee, and found herself quite perturbed by the _ridiculously_ stubborn man.

* * *

"Oh god…" Evan's eyes widened upon receiving a small envelope from Dieter later that afternoon. "This isn't like…your wedding invitation, is it Div? You're not like…cheating on Raj with Boris who, might I remind you, keeps heads in his refrigerator?"

Divya shot him a look that promised a long and torturous death…at least underneath the clever attempt at a half-smile.

Hank scoffed as he uncapped a new water bottle. "Evan, I think you're getting a little too ridiculous with the whole 'terrified of Boris' pretense…" he admonished. "The man just demands his privacy. Is that so hard to comprehend?"

"No man. I'm being just the right amount of ridiculous…actually," he laughed nervously, gesturing toward the main house. "Just you wait, Henry…that man's gonna turn up like…some creepy psycho who drowns babies and eats them with his _extra_ creepy butler when there's no one else around. And yes, it is hard to comprehend because no multi-billionaire that has set up house in the Hamptons with a shark in his basement and a loyal _manservant_ at his beckon call should want _privacy_."

"God, you're so pathetic." Divya groaned and looked to Hank for advice instead. "Should we go, even knowing this is all some high-class charade and we are merely puppets in his little game?"

"We should go, especially knowing that it is a charade because Boris is a friend, benefactor and a _patient_," he shrugged his shoulders lightly and looked at the both of them expectantly. "If neither of you will go, I'll just show up by myself."

"Are you kidding dude? There's going to be…models there. Because, for some reason, Boris the secret agent or whatever is more of a chick magnet than me," Evan scoffed, dismissing the idea with some disdain. "Why that is…I have no idea."

Divya shot him a sideways glance and raised her brow inquisitively. "Yes, we're all in shock…that the charismatic billionaire should be more successful in wooing women than the groveling, irritating younger brother of the concierge doctor for the rich."

"Well, he obviously won you over, Div," Evan laughed, waving the envelope. "This is your engagement party…I mean, c'mon I thought you were better than that. What will your _betrothed_ think?"

She approached Evan with such ferocity that he nearly fell over the seat of the barstool behind him. In the meantime, Divya was able to snatch the white sheath, holding a party invitation inside, from his grasp. "_Raj _will not think anything of it, Evan, because there is absolutely nothing going on between Boris and me."

Evan nudged his head suggestively at her. "Your lips might say no, Miss Katdare, but your body says…oh yes, Boris, _yes_!"

"Listen, Mister _C.F.O_... if you want to live for this party, you will shut your babbling mouth and refrain from making comments that are _not_ at _all_ true!" Divya warned forebodingly.

"Alright, alright…please. The both of you, would you get along for just one night?" Hank beseeched from the sidelines, hoping that his P.A. would have the ability to endure Evan's foolishness for at least a moment…however long it took for her to leave without tearing his head completely off his brother's thin shoulders.

"Fine," Divya decided stiffly, her nostrils flaring. "I'm going home to change. I will meet the both of you there at eight o' clock, where we'll _all_ make our appearance _together_. That means, Evan, that you will keep your little _filthy_ paws off the models until we see that Boris is alive and well. Is that clear?"

"As crystal." Evan replied.

She turned on her heels and made her way out of the guest house, leaving two very quiet men in her wake.

* * *

Already the place was pounding with noise as Divya slid out of her car. Everyone, from supermodels to executives of multi-billion dollar companies, had shown up for one of the most exclusive parties of the year. Of course, there was New Parts Newberg's parties and Tucker Bryant, who always knew how to throw a good rave (being young and all).

But Boris, with half of his guests ignorant to the fact that he'd actually been born with a last name, was the one they'd all excessively hope would host a party. To be in the presence of the esteemed Boris was to submerge into the very essence of intangibility itself; the man was a legend in his enigmatic lifestyle, and they were all so intent on exhuming at least one dirty secret from his tight-lipped closet. Gay? Three wives on the side and a fifteen year old girlfriend? Illegitimate children stashed all over the world? An assassin?

_None_ of them knew.

Divya, however, had only question on her mind as she handed over her keys, with some reluctance, to the patient valet standing at one side. _Will that obstinate old cad have the good sense not to steep himself in alcohol before the night is done?_

She smoothed out the front and sides of her dress, gathered her clutch into her hand and made a beeline for the champagne the moment she passed through the veil of omnipresent sound. The music was so loud and so ear-shattering in its pulsations that Divya felt as if she'd been surrounded by tumultuous water; it had become a physical sensation, writhing and brushing against the skin in such a way that made one feel…_alive_.

Although she was not opposed to the occasional drink at the bar, Divya never prided herself upon being a sturdy party-seeker. And so, as she searched the crowd for Hank and Evan, the latter being held as a suspect for dragging Hank into the sea of bodies that seemed to engorge the room, she clung to her champagne glass like a security blanket. Not one sign of Hank _or_ Evan.

But as she nearly lost her champagne to the exquisite carpet, she found herself looking upon the very man she'd been looking for in the first place.

"Such a steady hand with the needle," he quipped lightly, an alcohol-induced smile on his face. She could easily suppose by the glass in his hand that he had been relaxed by the effects of the goldenrod poison. "And yet you prove that you cannot hold a glass of champagne to save your life."

"You're drunk, Boris," she remarked pointedly. "That cannot be good for your blood pressure!"

"I have hardly the mind to become intoxicated, nor the patience and will to commit to such a reckless state of mind," Boris shrugged lightly. "However, at the rate you're consuming your drink…you may see it fit before the night is old to deem yourself a hypocrite."

Divya held back a nasty comment for his sake, remembering that, though he denied such accusation, there was still the possibility that he could have been inebriated. She could hardly see in the dim-lighting, and his smooth, alluring voice never seemed to fail in its ability to manipulate – it seemed unlikely.

"Anything out of sorts in the past few hours?" She shouted over the music, which had just begun to throb again throughout the ebb and flow of the wandering crowd. "Anything at all?"

"Is that a faint hopefulness I detect in your voice, Miss Katdare?"

"I wouldn't dare," she retorted testily. "And even if I did, I would never make it known to _you_."

"If you demand to know…"He said and forcefully took her arm, making her spill her drink. She emitted a small, fearful sound as he hauled her through the crowd of people, completely unaware of her panic.

Suddenly, all the repugnant allegations Evan had made of Boris, of the severed heads and drowned babies that had first seemed so completely ludicrous in her own rational mind…they all became possible to her in that moment. _What…is he going to…rape me? Burn me alive and eat me in a stew? This is bad, Div…very bad. What is this man going to do to you?_

She wanted to cry for help, and cast many a wide-eyed, frightened look at the people she passed, but they were all so enamored with one another, with their posh drinks and lukewarm beers. _Can't they see me…am I even here? _There was also screaming, which she decided she'd try, but before she could conjure up one that seemed fitting for her predicament, and one that would be loud enough to hear over the music, she was pulled into another dim room.

Her breathing began to quicken…her heart was hammering, bellowing, _let me out of here!_

"What…what are you doing?"She stammered.

She waited for the axe, the collectable knife he'd bought from a museum…just for the exact purpose he was about to fulfill. Perhaps a gun or a miniature torture chamber. It all seemed to fit, why he'd invited her to the party in the first place. It was a distraction…_he's going to kill you, Divya you __**idiot**__…run, scream, find his pressure points and squeeze as hard as you can, kick him in the kneecap…__**anything!**_

But even as the thoughts tumbled through her head, all she received was a hand. She looked at it and gasped for quite a different reason than she had anticipated in the few moments it had taken for him to lead her into the private room.

His hand. It looked quite…_deformed_.

"Please…if you would be so kind as to inform me..?" He gestured to the mangled-looking appendage, and Divya quickly took it, her mouth parted in sheer astonishment as she looked it over, identifying the painful condition almost at once upon scrutinizing the abnormally shrivelled muscles.

"Focal hand dystonia," she said decidedly, looking up into his strained, sweat-dampened face. _He must be in some pain, even if he does not show it. _"It occurs when a certain group of muscles in the hand are subjected to loss of control and it...results in unintentional movement of the palm and fingers and, also, in painful cramping."

He grimaced as she continued to rearrange the hand slightly in her medical analysis, causing more pain even with her gentle positions. "Is there any particular treatment that can be..._administered_," he asked coolly, and Divya wondered at the fine serenity of his voice. "That may…diminish the spasm?"

"Yes…there is one…" she murmured thoughtfully, and was still for a moment. She then released his contracting, malformed hand as her own began to wildly dig through her clutch. At last, she felt her phone and seized it, dredging it up from the depths of her large clutch and hurriedly pressing Hank's speed dial. "Pick up, Hank…pick up..yes! Hank! It's Div…yes, there is a delicate situation that needs your assistance…I need for you to call for 10-mL of _botulinum toxin A…_yes, Hank…no, I can't. Because, Hank...it's _Boris_. You're his doctor; he needs you. Alright…alright I'll stay with him. Let me do it...no, I can, Hank...Yes, I can," she paused, looking disenchanted for only a moment. "Fine...but hurry!"

The phone slid into her lap and was forgotten, put out of her mind completely as she took his hand and attempted to manipulate some of pain out of his constricting muscles. His gaze slid lazily over her, and she could almost, if she looked hard enough into the pale, pooling softness of his eyes, see small flecks of contrition and gratitude begin to manifest there. She interpreted his silence as discomfort and, perhaps, as she watched his face out of the corner of her eye, _embarassment_.

Despite his unspoken agitation, she stayed with him until Hank arrived, who surreptitiously slid through a crack in the door, just large enough so that he could fit through without making an exhibition of his secretive movements. Divya obediently drifted to Hank's side as the doctor took over the comprimising situation, administering the injection with agile, steady alacriity. All the while, Boris was as calm as ever – and it seemed to Divya that nothing short of pure agony would move the man to show even a flicker of emotion in his smooth, unruffled countenance.

"Boris…you need to tell me…"Hank demanded, but his voice was so very gentle, yet determined in its tenacity that Divya began to take notes. Perhaps, she mused, it would prove to be the difference between evasion and cooperation in the future. "When did this start happening…I need an exact time."

"I could hardly remember, even if I wanted to know," Boris replied absentmindedly, flexing the muscles in his hand and exhaling heavily, out of sheer relief, as the pain began to wither away. "I am…sorry I could not be of any more service to you."

_Of course you are. _Divya rolled her eyes as she leaned against the wall, concealed by the shadows which fell over the sides of the room.

At first, Hank was quiet, and she distinguished the look on his face as one of deep thought, but his brow furrowed even further, casting shadows over his eyes as he came to an undesirable conclusion. "Do you trust me, Boris?" Hank asked after some deliberation. "You have to trust me if you want my help…will you listen to me when I tell you what I think would be best for you?"

"Am I obstructing you in any way?" Boris quipped darkly, burying his face into his hands, and one, weakened by the wilting throes of pain, listlessly curled its fingers over his forehead. "You pause as if I prevent your endeavors, and yet I have no objection to hearing your views."

Hank took one solid, cleansing breath, glancing momentarily at his associate in the corner, as if to calculate her own reaction. "I think Divya should stay with you in your house, to keep a close watch on your condition…it seems to be worsening."

Out of bewilderment, Boris' head snapped upwards, his hands falling from his face and at first he stared vacantly at his doctor, blatant in their questioning the authenticity of his estimation. But Hank was unmoved by the incredulity of his patient; he was quite serious.

And as Boris' line of vision shifted, and he caught Divya's eye, he saw that he was not the only one of the party that met the observation with revulsion.

* * *

AN: Thanks for the reviews, guys...I'm glad you liked the idea of the pairing. Now let's see if I can live up to your interest?

Disclaimer - I do not own even one aspect of the show original series, _Royal Pains. _Divya, Boris, Evan and Hank all belong to USA, Andrew Lenchewski and John P. Rogers.


	3. Chapter II: Small Victories

Divya, at last after sharing quite a long, unrelenting locking of gazes with an equally perplexed Boris, disconnected herself from the shadows that clung to the wall and confronted Hank. It took all of her willpower, and some which she had kept in hopes of severely beating the wits out of Evan if he should happen to strike the right nerve with that mouth of his again. It seemed impossible now, the optmism of a good walloping on her behalf, and so she exhumed the furtive strength from its concave deep within her restless mind; her eyes were fixated on Hank as she mouthed to him, _I need to speak with you. As in now, if you please._

Hank, however, did not comprehend her tacit request, and leaned in closer, as if trying to see her better in the muted light. "What?" He shrugged his shoulders, at a complete loss for assigning justification for her actions. "Divya, I don't read lips."

She heaved a long, agitated sigh. "Fine," she surrendered to his moment of denseness and turned fleetingly to Boris. "You _will _excuse us, won't you?"

He flourished his hand, indicating the plethora of empty space in the room that was convenient for seclusion. "I beg of you, be my guest," he replied. "I would not want to afflict your discussion with my…_unwanted_ presence."

_Another sarcastic remark? Oh, **you**...how I will __**deal**__ with you later…_

Instead of allowing him the satisfaction of knowing her contempt for his covertly insolent remark and equivocal manners, she ushered Hank into a dark corner. He looked rather uncomfortable with the setting, where their discussion was to take place, and voiced his opinion as Divya shot an admonishing look in Boris' general direction. "Um…what are you doing?"

The man was indifferent toward the conversing pair, just as he'd promised not five minutes before, and had taken a cigar out of his breast pocket with an antique lighter to match, as if to complete the image of his apathy.

But before Hank was awarded with an answer for his attempting to figure out what exactly was going on, she practically accosted him with her disdain for his, in her opinion, _horrid idea._

"Hank, you are _not_ going to give me away to this man like some…_odalisque_ for his harem! And I don't care how ill he really is; I will not do it! It is highly inappropriate for a man and a woman that are not married to share the same living quarters. I mean, really Hank...you might as well sell me off as a concubine as a gift for his compliance instead!"

"Wow, Divya...I can honestly say, for once, that you're the one that's overreacting," Hank retorted with an unrestrained laugh. "Besides, he doesn't even _have _a harem."

"How do you know for certain he doesn't?" Divya's whispers began to turn slightly hysterical. "_Boris never reveals __**anything **__to anyone. _And I do despise being one to commence rumors but…I _do_ believe he is hiding something much worse than focal hand dystonia and a shark in his basement!"

Hank pondered her flustered countenance for a moment and finally broke out into another bout of hushed laughter. At first, it was restrained for the sake of the argument; but it soon grew more rowdy as the absurdity of Divya's drunken anxieties had begun to truly sink in. As far as Divya knew, and she was almost certain by the thick, spicy scent of cigar smoke that wafted throughout the room, it seemed that Boris had remained ignorant throughout the duration of the debate.

_But if Hank doesn't keep quiet, I'm sure it will be eavesdropped on._

Hank held the small flashlight up to her face, and she squinted as he tried to check her pupils. "Divya…have you been drinking?" He asked. "You're not usually this…frantic."

_Perhaps I have, yes...a little...but how exactly is that relevant? You are trying to sell me off to a veritable cad and all you can think of my is my alcohol consumption?!_

"If I have, then it would be certainly none of _your _business. _You_, a man who I held in such high regard for his good sense and medical talents, that is now trying to force his PA on his client like some…some _dodgy pimp!_"

"I'm not changing my mind," he stated emphatically. "I think it's one of the only options we have, and the lesser of the evils. Besides sending Boris to a facility, which would ruin him, keeping close watch over him in the comfort of his own home is the alternative _I_ have chosen."

Hank sighed and looked at Boris, sympathy softening the stark solemnity of his intent. But as he returned his attentions to Divya, the severity resumed its course, and his eyes hardened. "As my employee, you will do as I say. You say you want to help me, Divya? Here's your chance…_help me. _Not everything is about the rush of the emergency and the satisfaction of a job well done all in one day. There's time to be invested in long-term patients, and _he's_ one of them."

For the first time in what seemed an eternity, Divya focused her concentration on Boris, her eyes flitting over his fine posture and the grace of every movement. The eloquence of his decorum was present even in the slow, purposeful way that he removed the cigar from his lips and exhaled the silver-white plumes of smoke, curling and enveloping the hollows of the air, filling with its wispy tendrils.

Slowly, the spirals vanished into the all-consuming emptiness that surrounded them, and Boris was like a beacon amidst the dim light and the haze of ghostly white – undaunted and calm, self-posessed even in the midst of the eye of the storm.

As she was in the middle of her own bout of inner conflict, Hank patiently awaited her answer, paused on the edge of his secret hope for temporary conclusion. There was only the sounds of the ongoing party outside the door which permeated the all-consuming silence of the room and reminded him that there was life beyond the four walls of their sanctuary.

At last, Divya returned to her reasonble mentality, and she blinked sleepily at him through the mind-numbing haze of alcohol, almost as if she were half-heartedly accusing him for his dexterity in persuasion. He took this betraying expression as his answer and took her hand, squeezing it gently with his own.

"_Thank you, _Divya…thank you."

"You have no idea how much you truly owe me, you know," she called after him, and he returned to Boris.

Out of habit, and respect for Hank's confidentiality with patients, Divya reverted to her former distress and enveloped her face with her hands, allowing a soft groan of disapproval escape her and filter through the secret space she'd created out of flesh and blood and bone.

"Should I...summon Dieter and have him prepare your room?" Came a voice.

Divya whirled around and gasped as the spontaneity of it roused her from rather unenthusiastic thoughts. But no sooner did she see Boris, looking rather pale but undoubtedly amused as he stood before her and witnessed her entertaining display, her alarm quickly subsided. "Oh…it's only _you_," she commented languorously. "I suspect Hank has revealed to you his secret plan to ruin me and remove me from his service?"

"He has revealed everything to me, but I fear he felt obliged to leave your ruination out of the account which he so generously afforded me."

"I am sure you have not mourned the loss of such minor details." She retorted hastily, drawing her gaze away from the faint, ethereal shimmer of his pale eyes.

Ignoring the brazen scorn in her voice, he continued on."I am no more pleased with the scenario which Hank has decided for us than you are, Miss Katdare," he pronounced mildly. "But it seems I am more inclined to mask my reproach."

She scoffed and looked up at his face momentarily before fixating her gaze on the sophisticated, mahogany-wood table behind him. "Undoubtedly in the same way you mask everything else in your surreptitious little lifestyle, yes?"

A transitory smirk decorated the gentle curve of his mouth. "Yes, well…you are looking not at all well. Perhaps you should retire in your...inebriated state."

She gave him a look of outright disgust. "I am no more drunk than you are _sir_, no matter how you wish to deny it," she replied. "Besides, why should I go to bed? I _am_ your babysitter now...and despite your age, you tend to indulge in too many childish antics for Hank's sensitive taste. I mean…a shark, Boris? _Really_?"

Again, he evaded her obscure assertion."You are...quite paranoid for a woman of such high stature."

"And your remarks are vapid at best." She countered ferociously, making a point to shove past his shoulder with her own as she returned to the futon to reclaim her clutch.

"Yes, vapid, well," he drew a long breath of his cigar. "Aren't we all the most vapid and tactless of wealthy creatures? Hosting parties and offering alcohol to those who have not the will to refuse it?"

She did not even spare him a look as she dug through her small case, looking nonchalantly for her phone."If you did not offer, perhaps they would not have to deliberate their preference to accept?"

"Perhaps, perhaps not," Boris walked toward the door, but paused as he reached for the handle. "However…the show, as always, must go on. There is ah...an abundance of champagne left, I presume....the object of your gluttony, isn't it?"

"You are the glutton, and a meager one at that, if I may say so." She rebutted venomously, and tried to ignore the insufferable smirk on the man's face as he slipped quietly through the small slit in the door.

_I should have let his hand swallow itself whole and wallow in its pain, _she thought as she found her phone, and with a little too much force than she expected, shoved it into her purse. _Incorrigible man…he's a downright cad and he knows it!_

She huffed angrily and followed Boris out of the door, leaving the room shadow-masked room to resume its soothing quietude.

* * *

The next morning, when Divya awoke, she was on the verge of panic in finding that she wasn't in her own room. In the place of her plain, inexpensive curtains, there were fine drapes hanging over the windowpanes, inducing a dimness that covered the room in a sleepy silhouette. The bed, in which she was so unceremoniously laying (one hand over the head, another by her ear, and her legs twisting and overlapping one another like flesh-colored vines), was a masterpiece in its own right, with delicate and flowery carvings, seemingly hand-wrought, in the bedposts and headboard.

She _was _panicked in seeing such a room, that she had never seen before, until she began to recall Hank's request and the reason why she was there in the first place. It was one of the various bedrooms arranged for Boris' use, if it just so happened that he needed a change of scenery or the like. However, for as long as she was there, it would be hers…_and I do not at all like the thought of sleeping in the same house as that self-righteous, pig-headed excuse for a man._

_I should be thankful that I don't have to share a room with him…or worse…a __**bed**__._

Her eyes widened at such a disagreeable concept and was, at first, glad for the knock that sounded at the door.

"Come in!" She called, and tumbled out of the sheets, gaining her footing just as the entrance opened and Dieter arrived, stepping gracefully into the picturesque room.

"Dieter, what exactly are you doing here, in...my room?" Her brow furrowed as she pulled on her jacket from the night before, completely ignoring the robe that was set out for her on the cream-colored futon nearby.

"Mister Rabanisch is expecting you at the breakfast table."

"Ah, so you _do _speak English. Information well recieved, I should think," she said, and upon receiving a slightly worried stare from the man, she continued on. "Yes, well, I am _sorry_ to disappoint your employer, Mister Rabanisch, but I am to be quite busy for the duration of the morning in _avoiding _him at all costs unless he is in desperate need of my medical attention. You may...reiterate that to him, if you should have the chance."

"No need, Dieter," came a second voice and, upon distinguishing its unmistakable pomp from the modest intonation of the butler at the door, Divya promptly gave a roll of her eyes.

Meanwhile, Boris slid easily into view. "I thought you might say something of that sort. And I contemplated the idea that it would be less…impolite of me if I extended the invitation myself."

"Well, now that you are here in person, I can _impolitely_ decline." She said and made for the door, hoping to find a bathroom of some sort to freshen up her wilted, untidy appearance.

Boris, however, would not have her resistance, and he deftly extended his arm so that it provided a barrier between Divya and the desired hall. "It is an invitation of the direst sort, Miss Katdare," he offered lightly, watching with a spark of mischief in his eyes as she huffed and defiantly slid her hands over her chest. "I would not have imposed if I did not have the most critical need of your assistance."

"And what could possibly need my attention other than your desperation for civil…or rather, in our case, nearly _uncivil_ conversation at the breakfast table?"

He allowed his arm to drop to his side, a fluid motion that made her own endeavors for escape seem bumbling in contrast as she bolted out the door. At first, she entertained the idea that she had won and he had conceded; but his voice resounded behind her, _almost _pleading in its perseverance.

"I had another…incident last night which you did not bear witness to," he called after her, making her halt in her footsteps.

Yes, _medicine_ always won her over…Boris knew this and would not be opposed to manipulating the source of weakness as often as was necessary for him while she was there. "Perhaps that could classify as an appropriate excuse for your time, which I am deemed so terrible for wasting?"

She turned, obviously following rather reckless train of thought. With a bite of her lip, she glanced down the hall at him, reviewing his angled features and the rather abstract expression on his face. "Perhaps," she decided. "But if I am detained for nothing, I must inform you that you _will_ be sorry."

Boris gently inclined his head, his eyes narrowing with artful subtlety that she could not see it from where she stood. "Am I to take this as a threat?"

"You will do better to live on the edge of fear."

"Yes, and your ferocity is so menacing…perhaps I should take to fencing to defend myself against your malicious…_intent_."

Divya opted against replying to such an obnoxious sign of mockery as they walked through the corridors, Boris towering over her and leading the way toward the breakfast table. Out of habit, she inattentively wondered about his height..._perhaps he is so graceful because of his ridiculously tall stature…one must learn to balance gaucherie, and so he learned his poise._

Meanwhile, in his own self-composed mind, Boris was configuring ways to win her over; he figured that first impressions, usually, were easy to refute…but in Divya Katdare's case…it was the first impression, when he found himself most indisposed to put forth his best manners, that made the lasting impact on her.

When they reached the table, Divya did not find herself so surprised in finding it to be outside. It was a beautiful table, nothing short of what she'd expected of Boris' usual taste for splendor, and the matching chairs, a bone-blanched white, glowed in the bright morning sun. Her head had begun to ache a little more than its mild reminder of the escapades of the previous night, and before she could even raise her finger to her forehead and make one sound of protest against the unfairness of headaches, Boris had outstretched his hand, two little salmon-colored pills nestled into the curve of his palm.

She peered cautiously at them. "What are they? I don't want to allow myself to be swindled into being poisoned by the likes of _you_."

"On the contrary; I mean to aide you. They are not poison and they will most certainly not bite, if you are wondering," he set the pills down by her water glass and proceeded to swallow his own, as if to prove to her they were safe. "But I would never dream of forcing you to take them. By all means, refuse if you feel you must out of some...misplaced sense of _pride_."

"It is a pity I could not say the same for you and your own misplaced pride, sir." She huffed obstinately.

It was some odd, concealed version of a peace offering; Divya could see it by the way those impish, glittering eyes of his transfixed on her, as if he were waiting for her to do something awe-inspiring or perform a little trick. Expectant, eager, hopeful…

Divya wondered that the pale green orbs had not popped from his head with such emotions filling them, even though they were really very measly expressions...and that was certainly a procedure she would not want to endure - replacing his eyeballs into their sockets.

And so, after some delay (a bit of time to weigh her options), she popped the pills into her mouth and took them dry. A small, complacent smile appeared on his face as he reached for a small bowl of peeled oranges. "There, was that so hard?"

She quirked her brow in a slow, menacing way. "I could always…reproduce them for you, if you insist upon portraying such smug manners."

"It would not hurt me, if that is what you are after…it would be your own head which you would cause to continue aching. A small victory in your own mind, but nonetheless…a harm to yourself."

With a sigh, she flattened her palms over the arms of the chair and looked patiently on Boris as he quietly, and thoughtfully, chewed the orange he had picked from the crystal bowl. "Which brings us to our next topic of discussion, Boris….for what ailment of yours have I been summoned here against my will?"

"No ailment, I'm afraid," he said, and a blatant smile crossed his features as he poured a new glass of water. "I have been dishonest in my objective…I meant to summon you here for nothing but your company," he paused but, upon seeing that she made to leave in the throes of her fury, continued hurriedly, "but since you are already present, won't you stay and have something?"

"No, I will most certainly not," she replied vehemently. "Because I would rather throw myself head first into your shark tank than dine with the likes of an infuriating cad!"

He struggled to contain a laugh as he chewed, which only deepened the roots of Divya's resentment and she scoffed at his display of hilarity in the face of her rage. No sooner did she make to leave, however, did Dieter inexplicably obstruct her path. He did so with such stealth at each attempt she made to escape that she relented, finally, discovering that it was yet another unconventional method of Boris' in hopes of making her stay. She yielded and sat back down in the chair she had been sitting in before; this time, she remained stubbornly silent.

"May I confess that you are a most pleasant breakfast companion?"

She threw him a nasty, soul-penetrating glare.

"I thought you might agree," he quipped with an ambiguous grin. "Perhaps, in honor of your happy manners, I should provide for you a compliment: you are not quite the burden I would expect in conveying you up the staircase."

She said nothing at first, but he saw her jaw clench as she struggled to contain what he could only expect were foul replies. Finally, she leaned forward, looking quite indifferent on the surface of her rather barren expression. But Boris was no simpleton…he could see the disgust behind her perfectly composed mask.

"Am I to understand that you are complimenting me in my lightness of weight or…that you are so cleverly implying your own male grandeur?"

"Hardly." He allowed only mere hints of a grin to surface, a gesture which he did not adorn in his eyes. "There is no need for excessively describing my masculinity when its aura is so...unmistakably palpable even without direct indication."

She gave a small puff of revulsion. "Ugh. You are quite the conceited spectacle, aren't you?"

"So I am reminded...and by you? What a compliment. Perhaps I should have a celebratory drink in honor of the manifestation of your...dexterous observation, so to speak." Upon mentioning the possibility of a drink, Dieter disappeared into the house as if on cue.

Divya started as she realized the man had departed from the small company. "You are not seriously considering drinking at such an early hour, are you?"

He did not answer, but accepted the clear glass of what seemed to be an alcoholic drink that Dieter had brought for him upon his manservant's return. "_Danke schön__."_

The only thing that kept Divya from swiping her hand across Boris' unsuspecting cheek was the saving grace of her ringtone. Her eyes narrowed as she reflected on the good fortune of the man sitting next to her, swirling his drink absently as if boasting the amount of its alcohol content, and snatched the vibrating object from the table.

"_What_?" She demanded briskly into the receiver. Her eyes softened as the voice became familiar. "Hank? Oh, you have no idea how glad I am to hear your voice…an emergency? Not a problem. My _ward_ is otherwise engaged in compromising activity; he will be properly entertained while I am gone. I'll meet you at the guest house in five minutes, no less. Wait for me."

She snapped her phone shut and looked on her observers with a tinge of relief in her expression. "Though it has been such good fun, bantering with you and becoming more and more irritated by your arrogance by the minute…I have a profession to return to, if you will please excuse me."

Both Boris and Dieter watched as she walked away, her clothes rumpled from sleep and her thick, dark hair tousled by the sea-coated breeze. But only Boris smiled as he held his club soda, looking rather smug in achieving his small victory.

"_Am meisten intrigant_."

* * *

In all honesty, Divya would have rather dealt with Boris' tiresome, and rather gallingly sarcastic, repartee than with the likes of a cantankerous old man with consistent panic attacks. Even if Evan was practically drooling over the wad of cash Hank was going to earn for him.

Even if she had been the one to implore the heavens for emergencies in the first place.

It was not that she _didn't _want to help, but that it was not what she had in mind; perhaps a sweet little boy or girl, who was unaware of the powers of satire and manipulation, would have been the much needed console for the callus that she had developed as a result of her overexposure to Boris. One with sweet liquid eyes and a pouting, rosebud mouth set in a face that made Divya simply want to croon out of sheer admiration…and a child would certainly not, in any way, respond in such a manner that would make her lash out with cruel witticisms and cynical rebuttals.

And so, after administering the proper dosage of Xanax and giving instructions to the man's daughter, a surprisingly sweet-natured woman who'd been cursed with a difficult father, Divya again slipped into the doldrums of idleness.

Not a ring of her phone revived her from her redundancy; not a whisper or a vibration issued from its little electronic figure. She wanted to throw it somewhere deep in the ocean, that way she could feign death and flee fto the Bahamas...away from Boris, away from Evan and _away_ from her pestering mother and father.

The small reminder made her sigh as she listened to the tapping of Evan's fingers. Hank, on the other hand, stood nearby talking, more akin to _arguing_, with Jill on the phone over the prescbribed medication for the old man.

Evan again drummed the pads of his fingers on the edge of the table; Divya reached over with her fist and it came down with a dull _thud _on his hand.

"Ow, Div!" His fingers flexed and suddenly recoiled; he nursed them gently with his opposite hand. "That's my flirting hand…you know, it's not all in the handsome features and the sly, witty repartee…it's in the body language too. Yeah, it really gets to them...it like...gets 'em goin', you know?"

"Yes, and since you can't speak anything other than _body_ language, Evan, I certainly should be opposed to rendering your fingers completely useless, shouldn't I?"

He gave her an inquisitive glance, one that seemed to dig a little deeper than Divya felt was comfortable. "What's gotten into you, Div? You're kind of a little bit irritable..well, more so than usual," he quitely studied her for a moment. "Or, maybe the proper question that I _should_ be asking is…_who's_ gotten into you," he paused to laugh and nudge her suggestively with his elbow, nearly sending Divya off her seat entirely. "Yeah, yeah? Am I right or what?"

She regained her posture and her eyes, now flashing with exasperation, fixed a heated glare on him. "Again, you are wrong in your inference. Would you like to try another guess? You will be wrong again, I assure you. Boris is the _last_ man I would ever want to have any sort of relationship with…."

"So he _has _gotten into you…just not in _that _way, huh? What's the old man doing that's so horrible? Better yet, what is the old man capable of doing to you that's so horrible? Like, prod you with his cane? C'mon, Div, you're like so much younger than him…you could like karate kick him into the pool or something…"

She shook her head at him. "Do you even know what you're saying, Evan? "

"No...not really," he confessed, but it was such a casual admittance that she hardly took notice of it. "But...I know that...what I _am_ saying to you is you should put him in his place…take it like a man, you know? You can do it…I have _total_ and complete faith in you."

"Even if I cared whether you had faith in me or not...Boris is not an extensive problem, really, not worth becoming agitated over. It's the idea of living in a mansion with the cad _indefinitely_ that has me going utterly bonkers."

Evan paused a moment, his mouth hanging open. "Uh…o-okay I'm…I'm kinda confused here. Is it just me, or is what you said just completely nonsensical and negating?"

"Oh, just forget it, Evan!"

His eyes widened as he murmured to himself. Divya caught only a portion of the words; _on the rag…needs Midol…going to tear my head off…_

It was not long before Hank returned to the table, his phone being shoved into his pocket and his eyes rather foreboding in the sudden wave of darkness that seemed to rush over their habitual bright and effervescent color. "Alright, well…I've got the prescription written for the benzodiazepine and Jill knows I'm coming for it so…we're all done here."

"Awesome," Evan slammed his hands against the table as he hopped up from the seat. Divya flinched slightly at the sudden movement, but made no indication that her thoughts had been disturbed; she had not the patience for such a needless skirmish, and Evan hadn't noticed anyway. "So, I'm totally going to this new club with Tucker and Libby, right? And it's supposed to be totally off the hook, like more exclusive than Boris' parties."

"Sounds…pretty exclusive." Hank rejoined suspectingly, looking rather unsure of his brother's real purpose in telling him. A client? He couldn't be too sure by the way Evan resumed his babbling about the superiority of the place and how much of the government's tax dollars it had taken to build. _Well, those weren't exactly his words but...same idea._

"It is…it so totally is. I'm not kidding you, Henry…and get this…"He raised his hands to further express his point, smiling. "It's only the creme de la creme that get in. Can you believe it?"

"I can." Divya remarked listlessly, glancing at her watch.

"What…what are you saying…that I'm like…some kind of party animal?"

"So what if I am?"

"Well you'd be totally right for once then, wouldn't you?"

She sighed impatiently and reached for her clutch as she rose from her seat. "As _invigorating _as this conversation is, I have to get back to my house and gather clothes for my return to Boris' prison chamber that he has waiting for me."

"Ah, yes..back to the rest home you go, Divya…make sure poor Boris doesn't mistake the shark tank for the bathroom…wouldn't want to lose the family jewels now, would we?"

She rolled her eyes and commenced the short walk back to her car as Evan began to laugh at his own joke.

"That's…not really that funny, Evan. Not even a little bit…"Hank commented as he deserted his laughing brother in the midst of a gradually diminishing chuckle.

"What?" He raised his arms defensively. "Well..._I_ thought it was pretty funny…if I do say so myself…and it is my words against the word of _prudes_ so...I don't know. I might be right."

And Evan, snapping his fingers as he went, followed his brother across the slow, lazy street, his keys rattling in his hand.

* * *

It was finally beginning to grow dark once Divya had returned to the main house, a large duffel bag full of clothes thrown haphazardly over her shoulder and her purse over the other. Dieter was there to greet her, waiting behind the door and bounding out almost mechanically as he saw her get out of the car with full hands.

"Here…let me get that for you, yes?" He offered.

"Really, it's quite alright…"She began to protest, but he had already lifted the heavy duffel bag from her shoulder and settled it over his own. "Well," she said. "For what it's worth…thank you very much."

"Not a problem…it is what I am here for."

They lapsed into silence as they walked toward the door. Divya shuffled awkwardly inside, nodding her appreciation to the man when he held the door open for her, even with his own burden to carry, and marveled, again, at the size of such a home. She thought it was a little…extravagant for one man to live in alone. But then Dieter closed the door behind her and she was reminded that he was, in reality, not the only person that lived there.

"You don't talk quite as often as Boris does, do you Dieter? If you could _define_ the blather that escapes Boris' mouth as talking at all..."

He made no gesture, but said, automatically, "I speak when spoken to."

_How…medieval of Boris, to treat his hired help like slaves. _She shot him a wary look. "Why's that, do you think?"

Dieter looked over at her, a rather blank look on his face. "Why, only because I do not have much to say. Mister Rabanisch does not have much to say. So, we don't have anything to say together then we don't say much at all."

They reached her room and Divya made sure to reach the door first. He thanked her quietly as he walked inside, and she followed suit, abandoning the wooden frame as she entered the room with her things. Dieter set the duffel bag on the bed and turned to her as she mimicked his actions.

"I will come to you if Mister Rabanisch has anything wrong. Yes?"

"Ah…yes," Divya nodded. "Yes of course. That would be great, Dieter, thank you."

He bowed lightly to her, a gesture of goodbye rather than submission, and he crossed the room quickly. She was left in her solitude for the first time that day, welcoming it with such unprecedented enthusiasm for the ensuing silence that she had never felt before.

* * *

_Everything was quiet. The corridors, the foyer, even the grounds were thick with the tranquility of the night, settling like a great black curtain over the indolent world. He even ventured to assume that the Miss Katdare was asleep in her bed, considering the time…it had to have been past midnight at least._

_Boris sat quietly in his lounge chair in the portrait hall, his hands folded over his knees and his eyes fixated on the photograph of his father and mother on the opposite wall. The pictures of generations stricken with illness before they had left behind the age of youth and beauty were propped up on those accursed partitions…his father, his grandfather, his great-grandfather. _

_All of them before him…they suffered the same abhorrent fate he would soon have to face._

_But he would not back down so easily as they did. He refused to capitulate to the will of the disease before the war had even been fought._

_The first thing he would have to do was find a cure. And since Hank was delayed, helpful as he was, by other persistent matters that had to be taken care of before Boris' diagnosis was to be determined, Boris would have to transfer the dilemma of his disease into his own capable hands. First, he needed the will to work diligently…and the innate somnolence of human tendency would simply not do in the face of such rigorous work to be done._

_The small plastic bag in his breast-pocket rustled irritably as he stood from his lounge chair; he looked twice down the corridor, and twice toward the staircase on the opposite side, careful to sharpen his ears for any sudden onslaught of movement. Finding none, he ambled down the hall toward his office, slipping through the door and closing it quietly after allowing one last look into the empty passage._

_He then, after sliding the locks into their sheaths, traversed the room, careful to dodge the coffee table that was settled before the fireplace as he made for his desk. The hearth was dark and cold, but the atmosphere still seemed to grow hot…as if with anticipation._

_He eased into the chair, pulled out the small bag and dumped the powdery white contents onto the polished wood surface._

_And suddenly a small, indistinct smile languidly crossed his weary features; there would be no human lethargy that could obstruct his resolve._

* * *

AN: Well, there you have it! The second chapter. Already? I know...I've been on a roll lately, it seems. I don't know if I'll have the third out by tomorrow but...one can only hope I'm up for Divya/Boris banter by tomorrow evening. Hopefully this chapter was sufficient. :)

As always, thanks for the feedback. Let me know if my German is incorrect or the medicine I incorporated in there is wrong; it's all information obtained by the internet. So...let me know just in case.

Disclaimer - None of the characters belong to me. Divya Katdare, Boris Rabanisch, Hank and Evan Lawson, Jill and Dieter belong to USA and the creators of the original serie, _Royal Pains_.


	4. Chapter III: Definitions of a Man

Weddings, _especially_ from the sideline perspective, seemed an entirely superfluous affair to Divya.

Even before the date for the marriage had been set, she couldn't help but think about the enormity of her wasted time as she listened to her mother, whose mild-mannered voice had always seemed to have the uncanny power to soothe before, summon the waiter for the check. Ever since the announcement of her engagement to Raj, the mere thought of a wedding sent Divya into spasms of dread, and not even her mother's soft, willowy voice could prevent such a weighty emotion from plaguing her mind.

So much planning and hassle and stress in her near future, not to mention the agreement papers and contracts to sign with florists and bakers and planners...but in the long-run, all those hassles would be forgotten after they were ultimately thrown into the back of everyone's minds following the end of the big day.

Of course, it was a romantic notion – a man and woman that were so utterly and irrevocably in love that they decided to consummate their devotion and let it be known to the world in the form of a ceremony. The bride, in her long, flowing white dress and the modest veil draped over her face, as if to hide her enormous. And the groom - who could ever forget the groom who would be rendered awestruck, not to mention speechless, by his beloved's resplendent beauty.

It was all very cliché and, in Divya's opinion, bland compensation for the real thing.

Authenticity in the world of marriage to her was quite a simple concept. Affection was one thing, she knew that for certain, but there was also the imbalance of two very different personalities that, when confronted, clashed and made for quite a scene of differing opinions. Arguments, bouts of silent treatments, bills, taxes, fussy children and taciturn husbands were all facts of life that were to be accepted when it came to the truth about the afterthought of matrimony.

At least, _Divya_ thought so. Regardless of her disparaging ideals, she was entitled to her own opinion.

And she could owe much of her cynical views to the fact that she was to be married to a man against her will. It would prove to be a faulty foundation to build the rest of one's life upon, but she reckoned, as she stared longingly at the lonely ice cubes at the bottom of her empty glass settled before her, that she wouldn't really have a choice in the matter. Her life had been planned for her. _Ironically enough for me._

Her mother turned to her as she passed her credit card along to the server who'd answered her gentle call for assistance. Divya could not ignore that the woman looked positively cheerful as she folded her hands together and set them absently on the opaque surface of the table. Optimism practically dripped from every pore, and Divya knew she was undoubtedly hoping for even a small amount of compliance from her headstrong daughter.

"So, Divya…have you put any thought toward what color your gown shall be?"

She sighed upon recieving her mother's probing question and kept a sharp eye out for the server. _Hurry…please, man…the state of my tolerance level for minor irritation is at stake here!_

"No, mother, I have not."

She looked displeased by the answer, which had obviously not been imagined in her own perfect version of their small chat. "Oh, really," she admitted. "I should have known. What with most of your attention devoted to your assistant profession as of late…"

"Associate, actually…and I promise that I will set aside a small amount of time for wedding arrangements soon. Agreed?"

"I suppose I can…_live_ with that, since it is your own engagement we're talking about here," the woman's voice began to taper in volume and rapidity as she began to notice her atrocious cuticles. It was revived as a new thought occurred to her. "But, if we are already here…can we at least go over the date? We have not even decided on the wedding day yet, and already the novelty of the engagement party grows quite…_stale_."

Divya attempted to mask her scoff as a snort of laughter. "Really, mother…are we discussing my wedding engagement or a sliver of old bread?"

"Now, Divya, you know I dislike it when you try to correct me. It's very…rude, even more so in public."

She sighed and took her daughter's hand, watching the small indication of a discouraged shadow fall over the younger woman's face. "There, there, my darling…the anxieties of waiting will soon pass. Raj, too, is positively besieged with nerves, if that is at all consoling?"

_Oh, is the entirety of my family to be utterly artless in the face of reluctance? Can they not see that Raj is not nervous at all…simply as unwilling, as I am, to wed a woman for whom he has never invested his heart?_

However, Divya could hardly think of ruining such happiness (an abundance of which she found in the woman's careful, unruffled face) with her own displeasure at the thought of marrying Raj. It was all her parents wanted for her, after the dreams they'd harbored for their daughter's acquiring a business degree had been decimated during their previous visit. She could never _dare_ to deny such a simple wish as to deliberate wedding dates.

After all, she wanted their approval in some way, and they were giving it more freely as the engagement progressed.

"Quite consoling, mother, _thank _you so very much for your concern. It is ah…well received, I assure you."

She received another small stroke of her mother's hand in return for such gratitude, but no sooner had the gesture been transferred, the woman switched tactics completely .

"So, Divya…I suspect we shall not have Raj in our midst again for another three or four months," she leaned a little closer to her daughter, the look in her eyes dimly patronizing in the way that they gauged Divya's reaction to such news. "He has pressing business in not only Bombay, but New Delhi as well! To think of how enthusiastic he shall be on his return for the wedding…how delighted he will be to see you in particular, my dear!"

"Yes, well…"Divya started awkwardly, and cleared her throat. "Perhaps he will be quite polite enough to contain his own excitement, as I will have such a difficult time in controlling my own. Don't you agree mother?"

"Oh, darling…do not fret," her mother replied, touching her hand to the sharp angle of Divya's cheek as if in an attempt to comfort her. "He will be back soon enough. And then you shall be his wife! How lovely…and grandchildren soon, yes? Oh, I am such a happy woman…my daughter – to be married at long last! Such happy days to come."

Divya, however, could not inwardly concur with her mother's apparent glee. She tried her best smile on, hoping it would fit the lines of sorrow which dismantled her calm expression, and as effervescently as she could manage, she said,"I agree…such _excessively_ happy days."

* * *

The afternoon consisted of little else but paltry insinuations about the upcoming wedding on behalf of her mother and Divya's attempts to hide her lackluster attitude toward the entire affair. In fact, her mouth was actually sore from the half-smiles, forced laughter and instances where she'd found herself obligated to give some sort of happy response to her mother's croons. It was the main focus as she sat at the rather beautifully fashioned vanity, arranged in an adjacent manner to her equally lovely bed, and tried to figure out ways to relieve the stress on the overwrought muscles.

But as there seemed no cure for the strain, other than lack of use, and her thoughts began to wander - _why on earth does Boris even have a vanity in the room in the first place? __God forbid a man should be without a vanity, especially one so properly groomed as Boris Rabanisch. __However, perhaps I should afford him the benefit of the doubt…it could have been a gift, or served as a gift to a lady friend. __Or, there is even the chance that he, in his usual secretive manner, brought it in while I was in the midst of alcohol-induced oblivion._

_That could be entirely possible, in light of the situation and, not to mention, the man's bizarre habits._

Already, she had been there two weeks. Fourteen days which were comprised of either droll witticisms or complete silence, dusted with the occasional concise greeting or his calling for her on account of urgent business elsewhere. The latter was a result of an entirely _new_ development.

As if the torment of living with the manipulative _cad_ was not enough for Hank's obvious enjoyment (Divya was certain that he Hank harbored his own secret existence as a sadist), there had been more added to the terms of her caretaking assignment only a few days after she'd settled in.

Whenever a business call had come, she was forced to tag along - leaving the fortunate Dieter behind to keep close watch on the goings-on of the household.

It was a rather tedious procession, she soon came to find. After the initial greetings between the men, Boris, at first, would take Divya aside (mortifyingly enough_, like some little girl on her first day of school_) and motion for her to sit in one of the chairs while the meeting continued inside an office, or something similar. It was enough to make her want to slug the man in the face for his inescapable arrogance...of course, she refrained, but the urge never truly subsided (merely lay dormant for a while until he conjured it up again).

After a few days of the same humiliating routine, however, she had come to realize that she would have to take matters into her own hands, if she did not want to suffer his condescension. She would sit down immediately upon walking in, and Boris would offer only one inquisitive glance in her direction before leaving her to relax in the white silence of the empty waiting area, a book in hand or a collection of emails that were in need of her attention.

It had been another one of Hank's so-called brilliant ideas, the same ones that were always met with dislike by both her and Boris. It had been regarded as another precaution in case the man had an attack of some sort. When Boris reminded Hank that his dealings with the men were, as everything else in his life, rather private, the doctor was quite unsurprised, and told him he would figure out a way to keep them concealed from her knowledge. Divya had agreed with at least that idea – he was, after all, a very _smart_, well-articulated man.

Divya began to wonder if Hank ever took into consideration what it would feel like to have to sit across from the intense, silver-haired man each time he was called for a meeting or set out for a bout of relaxation; Dieter, thankfully, came along on the leisurely days. But the rest of the time, Divya was preyed upon by Boris' eyes; despite their attractive sea-glass shade (she would admit to _at least _that), they were not at all soothing in their hard, determined gaze.

He would sit across from her the entire time, whether they were being transported by helicopter or car, and stare at her, sometimes with his chin settled in his hand and his brow seeming to be the only active muscle in his entire body. She could have easily mistaken him for a marble statue or a cadaver, by his irrefutable pallor and the way he never moved – it was positively unnerving, to say the least.

And the way that those profound, concentrated eyes glinted in the streams of light, like the shallow surface of gray-tinged water, was enough to drive any sound, resolute mind straight into the depths of uncertainty.

Either way, Divya hardly cared whether or not the man even acknowledged the fact that she was practically his roommate for the time being – he was the same incorrigible creature she'd come to despise upon arriving on the doorstep the night of the ill-fated party (though it had been deemed a _public_ success) and she had a strong inkling that the image would not be altered.

But it did not go unnoticed by her that he had quite the method of making her squirm.

With the exception of the occasional throttling halts of the business meetings that Divya had come to abhor, everything was left undisturbed in the main house. When Boris was locked in his office (his polite way of signifying he wanted people out of his face for the moment), Divya found herself feeling slightly lonely in her dealings with idleness, but it was hardly anything she would waste energy agonizing over.

What _was_ worth agonizing over, however, was when she found herself missing the engaging banter between herself and the man of the house. Though, thankfully, it was _not_ an activity that she found herself prone to often.

But as she stared into the mirror, her eyes seeming to glow like smoldering coals in the reflective surface, there it was – that same strange need for his clever discussion.

A knock at the door roused Divya from her dangerous thinking, and her hand, which had gathered into a fist, slammed against the wood out of surprise. "C-come in…"She sputtered, and looked fleetingly back in the mirror to help her compile her fractured equanimity before the mysterious guest came inside.

No sooner did she turn to greet the person was her pretense shattered. There was Boris, a ghost of a smirk on his lips and a porcelain tea cup balanced in his hand.

She pulled the robe tighter around her figure as she rose to meet him. "Do you not have some semblance of propriety? Or even a sense of self-preservation, for that matter…that would surely suffice in keeping you out of my room when I am practically naked!"

One small chuckle escaped him as he gently set the tea cup down on the vanity behind her. "You would find yourself more…successful in keeping me away if you should not announce your lack of attire. For then why else would I roam the corridors at dusk, bringing you tea if not in hopes of damaging your own sense of propriety?"

_How pathetic of you, Boris…you will not utilize the classic excuse that it is your intent to discover me entirely naked instead?_

She turned her attention to the tea which he had brought for her; it seemed innocent enough, in its soft, warming tendrils of steam rolling off the opaque, tawny liquid. The scent wafted near her - chamomile herbs.

"Do not concern yourself with thoughts of poison," he assured her as he leaned casually against the mantelpiece of the fireplace. "If I had the mind to dispose of you, it would not be through your tea."

"And yet another grand example of why I do not trust you, Boris," she said and sat down on the opposite side of the vanity, leaving the tea to simmer in its own warm aura. "Don't you ever wonder why it is that I keep such distance from you?" She paused and looked at it again, hardly able to silence her curiosity. "What's it for, anyway?"

"Your nerves…I thought they may require some unwarranted attention." He replied airily.

"Nerves?" Divya mimicked, her voice rising with her mounting inquisition. "What nerves? How are you to know what nerves I do and do not have?"

"I have...resources that are not available to you to acquire such information," he said, and she hastily rotated in her seat, watching as he straightened his bowtie.

_It could not have so easily escaped my noticed that he was finely dressed before…he must have only just put it on while I was looking away. _

_Unless he wants me to think such ridiculous things. He __**is**__ a man of many superfluous schemes._

"And what does that entail?" Her voice heightened even more, almost to the point of hysterics, as he turned away from the mirror with an obvious leer decorating his mouth. "_Boris, _I demand to know, and your secretive nature be damned if I do not have the explanation I am looking for!"

He ignored her completely and craned his neck out of her door, looking down the hall. "Dieter, _bring das hier._"

He found Divya to be directly behind him as he averted his gaze from the hall back to her. He rather liked the way her eyes flashed and her lips wilted, hardening into a most malicious snarl, and awarded the ferocity of her manner with a swift, but thorough inspection of her figure with his pale, gray-green eyes.

"Where are _you_ going?"

"Miss Katdare, _you_ are coming with me."

"Where exactly am I going with _you_ is the question I am asking, sir, and I am demanding that _you_ answer me."

Divya knew she should not have been surprised by his reluctance to divulge information, even if it was the most simplest of revelations; it was a common occurrence with Boris, whom was so alike to a fugitive in his every movement that, at times, she wondered if she lived alone with Dieter in the large, luxuriously festooned house.

Still it vexed her so greatly that he would not tell her the simplest thing as a location or an event. _Is it so hard, or so secret, that I cannot know? _Again, the thoughts of his clandestine lifestyle drifted admonishingly into her head…a murderer, an assassin, a rapist, and all of which fell under the same category of equally repugnant, immoral characters to be feared.

A low, throaty chuckle resonated in the depths of his throat and Divya had the sudden urge to remove the offending esophagus out of his body the old-fashioned painful way. _He _had the audacity to laugh at _her? _He, who was keeping a secret from her and acting the fool, and deriving pleasure from the irritation he obviously knew he caused by withholding such crucial information?

Her hands began to twitch yearningly, fingers curling and the ends of her nails aching with bloodlust.

Unfortunately for her, he was attuned to her murderous intent, and he brushed past her before she could act on her desire; the extent of his good fortune was broadened as Dieter entered the room with a large, rectangular box.

_Surely I cannot have witnesses to such an act of brutality…even if it is only **one** witness. He is a lucky man indeed to have such a swift and punctual butler._

"_Zeigen sie ihr," _Boris commanded, and he stepped forward once more, standing by Divya's side as she stared warily at the strange box.

At last, it dawned on Divya as the parcel was opened, the lid falling off and sliding to the floor. Forgotten, as if it were never even there in the first place. Underneath the colored cardboard, a neatly folded composition of fabric lay before her eyes, an enticing scarlet that drew her in, willing her hands to touch the lissome material.

Instead, her hands flew to her mouth, her eyes glittering like black sheaths of obsidian. "_Oh_…" She could not even finish.

"Yes, it is quite a vision isn't it? And scarlet too…I daresay you will be the belle of the ball," he seemed to let the phrase linger for effect. "If, that is, you _comprehend_ my meaning."

Divya whirled on him, glaring as she was, again, subjected to his unwavering amusement in the face of her disgust. "Are you endeavoring to communicate to me, sir, that you are intent on wearing me as your arm candy to another one of your ostentatious society gatherings?"

He, again, evaded her question. "The night is not yet settled, Miss Katdare…but I should think you would be wise in preparing yourself now, as opposed to later. Dieter, _komm mit mir._"

She was left behind as the two men departed from her room, the vibrant color of the scarlet evening gown like a flare in the last shades of dim, watery light flooding through the windowpanes.

* * *

He did not wait as long for her as he would have expected, at least when his anticipation had been derived from the meticulous behaviors of high-society women. Nonetheless, he grew rather tired of waiting after the first half hour, and had resorted to absently tapping his fingers against the banister of his intricately-carved staircase to pass the time; Dieter stood quietly, and so patiently, somewhere behind him.

In his state of tedium, one that he had predicted he'd be forced to face in delaying his schedule for a woman, he began to consider Divya and her outlandish manners. The way she presented herself for not only his judgments, but for the world's as well, was quite an eccentricity in the habitual mild manners of the female behavior.

But beyond her peculiar abilities to feel unthreatened by the views of her peers, she was also well-equipped with charming banter and a witty tongue. Every word seemed a composition, a symphony, a _masterpiece _as it flowed from her mouth, always bowed in its disapproval - like rose petals in softness and color. Boris had come to crave her next turn of phrase, as if it would be her greatest opus of all.

It was quite the opposite sort of person he was accustomed to dealing with. Business left little room for the pleasures of easy discussion, and what was not directed toward the affairs of entrepreneurship and the innovations of modern industry was lost to lack of interest and inspidity.

But Divya was never uninteresting; it seemed unnatural for her. He came to find, in the short time she'd been with him, that she made it impossible for him to pronounce himself as being bored in her presence. He blamed her bewitching speeches as the reason why he was never surprised when he found himself seeking her out for the sheer reason of hearing her speak so dramatically. It was a diversion within itself, listening to the woman voice her opinions, even if they were the lowest of views in regards to him.

He had plans to modify her rather unpleasant perception of him. They were likely very similar to the plans he had for Hank, and even that nosy and infuriating younger brother of his. But she would be prove to be a challenge…he knew this even before commencing the concepts of his schemes which involved her. However hard she would be to win over, he was not afraid of a fair test of strength and patience; in fact, Boris could readily boast that he was almost _always_ willing to accept a difficult conundrum.

Footsteps resonated off the walls, and the natural acoustics of the tile and the plaster betrayed the sounds of their approach so that there was no escaping without _some_ notice. Boris turned and watched as Divya descended the staircase, looking rather stunning in her vermillion gown.

Her incensed expression, however, did not contribute to the radiance of her appearance.

He offered her a small crooked smile of appreciation. "Well, I am surprised to see that there _is_ femininity beneath the usual constant frontage of aggression."

She narrowed her eyes and gave a defiant hop as the stairs ended beneath her heels. "You would be wise to watch your tongue, or I shall see the situation fitting in rousing it from its hidden realms." Her hair, which she had fixed in an ornate, yet flowing arrangement, brushed over her shoulder in thick, fine waves of black as she leaned dangerously close to him."Don't tempt me, _sir, _or I will wield it on you."

"You speak of such a monster as if it is your pet," he chuckled, a short, ambiguous gesture that was lost to his reversion to anonymity. "Very well, I will...conduct myself accordingly," he relented, his eyes shifting over her hair with vague approval. "As I should not like to see your hair undone by one of your...fits of temper."

She fumed silently and made for the door, giving not one of her opinions for him to confront.

Boris, once again victorious in their unending battle of wits, followed her to the door in his usual agile pace, almost as if he were prancing as he crossed the grand foyer in his pressed, laundered tuxedo. There, he turned to Dieter, and, in his native tongue, relayed instructions for the evening maid service. He bid his manservant goodnight, who returned the farewell with a nod, and retraced Divya's path out of the house.

He found her waiting outside when he had walked through the partition and was, again, taken aback by how well she seemed to look in her polished emergence from everyday attire.

"I expect the gown is to your liking?" He proposed lightly, searching the empty courtyard for the car. Headlights, two small circles of light in the far away dark, materialized on the path of the driveway.

She glanced at him reproachfully. "As if you should care if I were wearing anything, Boris. In fact, I am sure you would be much more pleased if I were not dressed at all."

"You base your opinion of my partiality so certainly on your sexuality, Miss Katdare, that I should find you dangerously close to expressing that same art you mentioned some time ago…what was it," he paused, an omnipresent smirk on his lips. "Ah yes…the _art of seduction._"

"As if I would waste such talents, should I have the capability to seduce anyone, on the likes of _you_."

He decided to pursue her slight. "And what precisely would the likes of me entail?"

She folded her arms as she weaved her thoughts, fixating a cold, menacing glare on his face, which was elevated slightly farther up in the air than her own. "You desire a true definition, or words of submission?"

A laugh ghosted through him, but did not manage to reach his expression, nor permeate the barrier of his eyes. "Enlighten me with your…_characterizations_."

"_You, _meaning you exactly, would be classifed as a man who does not readily display his emotions, but hides them behind vague insinuations because he does not wish to confront them. You would be defined as a man that dons his pressed attire and his countenance completely unruffled, but merely in his futile attempts to escape the hollow void behind the enticing charm. You would be described as a man who readily plans his covert actions rather than taking the time he wastes _scheming _and _keeping secrets..._to invest his heart in his friends."

Her head tilted, as if trying to nudge her way into the inner workings of his darkest, most clandestine mind. However, as she looked, one fragment of his existence unearthed her heartstrings instead, pulling hard.

Her voice lowered as she finished her last thought."....Because you would sooner die _alone_ than invest your heart in anyone."

He searched her eyes, and in his scrutiny, she found the pale, glowing color to be slightly tarnished with repressed sorrow. "Well, then, Divya," he said softly, his voice nearly a whisper. "…it seems as if you comprehend me perfectly."

She was quiet for only one suspended moment as she considered his words. They were merely an act of avoidance, elusion in the face of disquieting possibility of discovery. She knew he could not risk allowing her to know him, whoever the true man was behind the lackluster guises, and for reasons, which she did not know as he had refused to reveal them to her, he deemed fit for such a belief.

He was skirting the truth, perpetually constructing it with lies and illusory intimations until it was merely a revised veracity…something he would allow his public to percieve.

But only because it was not him amidst the endless weaves of deception.

At last, the car had arrived, throwing its blinding shards of light on the pair as they stared at one another, one with soft, pale eyes and the other with their hands folded into fists.

"My comprehension of you is far from perfection, I can assure you. I may know the face of the man, but I shall never know who it is that really exists behind the misleading facade," She muttered darkly, and resumed the short walk to the waiting car.

* * *

For a long time, the backseat in which the two of them sat, Divya at one window and Boris reposing quietly, patiently beside the other, was drowned in quiet. Not a word, not even a wisp of breath was heard from either party, and only Divya harbored distasteful thoughts for the situation in which the car was settled. Boris was always seceded from the normalcy of his archetype by his routine silence, and was a man of few surprises – at least, so it was in Divya's opinion.

However, as the car neared the residence in which the social gathering was being held, he turned to her and, with rehearsed pleasantry, said, "if it should raise your spirits, I should be quite pleased to inform you that this particular family has the most exquisite taste in ice sculptures."

She couldn't tell exactly from which figment of his character the words originated from. Kindness? Curiosity? Hospitality?

_Obstinance_?

Or perhaps, she mused, it was merely another quip to induce their habitual rendezvous of harshly exchanged words, for which she was hardly in the mood.

"I should not care if they offered an array of icebergs for our viewing pleasure," she retorted tenaciously. "I shall not be coaxed into harboring any desire whatsoever to attend this gala of yours."

"Not even for the sake of medicine?" He asked.

"Even if I had one possible idea as to what you are talking of," she paused with a sigh, watching the darkening world pass by in a blur, some of the shadowed scenery enveloped in a heavenly glow within the obscure halo of the occasional streetlight. "I would not even bother to inquire."

He seemed altogether astounded by her response. "Well, I should have thought you would have been knowledgeable of the happenings of the medical world."

"Not when I am locked in confinement with you, I am not," She replied bitterly, and listened with some resentment as she heard him give a short, barking bout of laughter. "You are no avid reader of medical articles and books as I am."

He was silent for a moment, as if contemplating her masked affront. "Perhaps you will…permit me to impart my wisdom to you then," he said, and his fingers lightly brushed against the glass as he amassed his thoughts. Divya watched with mild curiosity at his strange movements. "It is a convention of sorts...supplying the finances for resources in order to establish Jill Casey's free clinic that she...so _avidly_ desires."

She was, for once, pleasantly stunned by his words. _I wonder who it was among them that took a few moments to plan an otherwise meaningful gathering?_

The car slowed as it pulled up to an elegant house, one that was comparative in size and beauty to Boris' own palace. A valet waited outside the door, almost motorized in his unyielding posture – as seemed natural for the hired hands of the wealthy.

"And to whom should Jill have the pleasure of being so grateful?

Boris cast her a bemusing look, an expressiveness which lost itself in the depths of his eyes. "Myself, of course."

He slid out of the car, and at first it seemed as if he intended to leave Divya behind in the wake of his staggering confession.

But before she could take such wistful thinking into respect, of being left in the car as she so wished, he extended his hand into the car for her to take.

* * *

AN: I'm not sure if this will become a habit or not. That is, my daily updating...but I hope it will be! Thanks for the continuous feedback. :)

Disclaimer - I don't know Royal Pains. If I did, I would be invited to Boris' widely acclaimed parties. Divya Katdare, Boris Rabanisch, Hank Lawson and Dieter belong to the creators of Royal Pains. :)

Interested in seeing Divya's gown? Send me a PM and I'll send you the links!


	5. Chapter IV: Temptation

The doors were held open for the pair as they arrived on the rather boisterous scene, and Boris gave the man (who'd been so ambitious in his job of door-opening for the rich) a slight nod of appreciation when they had passed through. Everyone in the room was similarly dressed, if not more extravagantly than the rest in an attempt to show off their expensive feathers – and even the less luxurious gowns were worth more than Divya's paycheck after one measly round of patients.

In entertaining her thoughts toward the gowns, Divya was duly reminded of her own garments, billowing like silk around her, the material swathing the curves of her body in such a way that made her feel as if she were walking naked through a group of high-society entrepreneurs and trophy wives. Knowing Boris and his ostensibly unlimited funds, she had no doubts that the dress she had been presented to wear had not been the most _economical_ selection.

Her muscles stiffened as she remembered that she was merely eye candy for the sake of his attending the benefit. "So, my pompous German friend...how many countries were you forced to bankrupt in your endeavors to dress me like your own personal porcelain doll?" She asked pleasantly, and Boris, at first, merely chuckled in response.

"You're hardly the insipid color of porcelain, as I'd presume you'd know. And I'd expect that it would be none of your concern, Miss Katdare, in light of the fact that you are my doll, as you say," he paused, looking her over with some degree of licentiousness in his gaze. "Fine china does not talk, does it?"

"Unfortunately for you, in light of the fact that I am _not_ your plastic doll, Boris, I find myself quite exempt from the _inability_ to talk." She snapped in reply.

"And no one could accuse you of such an inability without risking their reputation as a practiced..._spectator_," he replied lightly. "I could deem your speeches as being quite the _spectacle_."

She smiled at an older woman they had barely just passed, whose black crushed velvet gown seemed to overshadow the effects of her gaudy lipstick, as Divya found her conversation (at least on her end) prone to public display.

"If you do not want to risk your own reputation for intrigue, you would do well to restrict your commentaries to business and, perhaps if you are feeling particularly adventurous, the _stock market_. At least, that is the way a _gentleman_ would handle the compromising situation of having an unknown woman accompany him to _his_ benefit."

Boris seemed unruffled by her reminder of the situation, despite Divya's formal announcing of what she viewed as a unsavory affair. His body twisted around, gracefully as always much to Divya's dismay, in order to retrieve two svelte crystal glasses filled with bubbling champagne. "Then it is good fortune indeed that I am not a gentleman. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Oh, really?" She took the glass from him forcefully, conveniently forgetting to convey her gratitude. "Then what would you deem yourself? An aggressively evolved _ape_?"

He laughed aloud at her comment, and his brow seemed to arch inquisitively as he measured the extent of her insult. Upon choosing a retort, he paused to heighten the effect of its delivery by taking a long, dramatic drink of his champagne.

Divya, in the meanwhile, stared at him with searing black eyes as she awaited his answer.

He cast a sidelong glance in her direction, as if to catch a glimpse of her anticipation. "A self-righteous _cad_," he said, and sighed as he donated his empty glass to a passing waiter for a new, full one. "At least, that is according to your opinion. And you do have the most exquisite opinions – sometimes I feel as though I must adopt them as my own."

Divya's world seemed to ignite for a moment upon hearing the verbalization of her thoughts – _how on earth did he manage to discover such a thing? _

_Perhaps I should not take the protective nature of the walls so lightly. They may very well have invisible ears in the house of Boris Rabanisch._

And as the flash of realization faltered, Divya found herself standing before a cluster of men with champagne glasses in each weathered hand, all seemingly perfect carbon copies of the other in their black tuxedos and pressed white collared shirts. All of them looked on her, studying every line, curve and fold of her dress, for the short moment it took for Boris to gather his business-like composure and clear his throat – signifying, through the gesture, that they immediately affix their roaming eyes elsewhere.

"Boris, good fellow!" Stated one of the men, who stepped forward and extended his hand. He looked at Divya once more, only to be met with her reprimanding gaze. "Who's ah – who's your lady friend?"

"Yes, I don't believe I've ever seen her before." Declared another.

They talked amongst themselves as if Divya weren't even there, and she found herself in quite the dilemma, facing both Boris' uncertain reputation for secrecy and her own assertive tendencies when it came to the laws of social skills – she hardly knew which to choose. But hearing them speak of her in such a way presented the temptation she requird in breaking from her professional shell of muteness.

"She, and her identity, is of no consequence," Boris assured them. "Merely another member of the ah – female population among the guests here."

None of them seemed to be undone by Boris' ambiguous description of the girl, nor the manner of his introductory of her. But it was not a good enough reason to stifle the intrigue of her appearance – who was she, where did she come from? Why on earth was she with old, stiff-necked Boris Rabanisch when she was obviously striking enough in her exotic looks to have her pick of the men?

The men knew they were going to fish nothing more out of Boris and, as they found themselves temporarily dismissed, began to dabble in light conversation as the 'lady friend' of Boris' was pulled aside – likely for a reason they would not be informed of either.

Divya rolled her eyes. _By his explanation of me, the word 'gold digger' has probably already entered their minds in bold, italicized font._

"If you would be so kind as to keep your identity and your reason for accompanying me out of the conversations, I would be…quite grateful for your compliance."

"Oh, for goodness sake, Boris – isn't it better to tell them up front so that they do not think the worst of it later?"

"Yes, well…I am willing to compensate for your silence?"

"Buy me off?" She scoffed. "No, that will do no good – then the authenticity of your ownership and sway over me would be rendered tangible. I couldn't very well handle being your veritable slave both medically and personally, now could I?"

He smirked lightly at her, and Divya only just began to feel the warmth of his hand radiating through her skin as he pressed it softly against the middle of her back. "I would never dare underestimate your stamina for such things, Miss Katdare – perhaps you could serve well in both aspects, seeing as you are a woman of many _talents_."

"Quite the opposite. I have few talents, and the ones I do have, besides my medical practice, I will not waste on you."

"Then it is settled," he announced, his voice lowered to a whisper. She could feel her back slightly arch as he leaned nearer to her, the scent of his cologne almost palpable while they were locked in such close proximity. "You shall exercise your talent for speech and evade their probing if we should be separated. Is that understood?"

Her jaw clenched, tautening each muscle in her body until she felt as if she had turned to stone. "Fine, Boris, but if you would do be so kind as to remove your hand, I would be so _very_ obliged to take my comprehension of your terms to heart."

He watched her with his muted, pale eyes, the same indefinite spark in them that made her feel as if she were been stripped of her clothes by the very effects of his stare. But he soon removed both his hand, pleasantly heated against her bare back, and his gaze from her – allowing Divya to breathe freely again.

A voice erupted from behind the pair, and both she and Boris reacted similarly to the unforeseen arrival. Divya started, immediately, and backed away from her employer with suspicious rapidity. Boris merely blinked and turned to see Miss Newberg approach them in her garish evening gown. "Oh, Boris! What a dear, you came!"

"Why, I should not be absent from my own benefit, Mrs. Newberg. I would prove to be quite the scoundrel if I dared feel at liberty to be exempt from the celebrations, wouldn't I?" he replied pleasantly, but Divya could discern the subtle current of frustration in his calm, collected voice. Newberg placed a sloppy kiss on his cheek, leaving an apparent lipstick stain on the scathed flesh.

Divya constrained her snort of derisive laughter as he snatched a napkin from a passing waiter to wipe the unsightly mark off his face.

Newberg recognized her immediately as a result of the sound and began to croon. "Oh, Divya! What on earth are you doing here, and with our_ silver fox_ no less? My, my…what taste you have! And to think I had been so foolish as to think you were dating Evan Lawson!"

Divya smiled fleetingly at the woman as she tried to repress her disgust at such a thought. "No, ma'am – I have not currently invested the patience enough to date such a nuisance as Evan."

"Then…you are with Boris?" She gestured to the tall, rather amused-looking man standing before her. Divya felt her cheeks burn with an impending flush as she found herself being preyed upon by a gossip hound.

"No, I am not in the business of dating anyone as of late, Mrs. Newberg." She responded politely.

Newberg looked delighted at the answer she received, and Divya wondered if it was as a result of a secret admiration for her mysterious employer. Her cheeks cooled, and the color began to recede more swiftly with the consideration of the possibility, and mourned Boris' inability to become flustered by his being bombarded with unspoken affections by such a woman. It would have been quite a sight to see him squirm, or at least blush.

"Well, if that isn't so? A young woman like you in her prime, as beautiful as you are? Why, it's no wonder that all the men in this town are unavailable. You've got them all wrapped around your finger, haven't you? You are quite the sly little seductress you are!"

Boris, suffering a distinctive bout of laughter as he listened to Newberg shower her praise on a rather awestruck Divya, offered his own explanation for their disappearances. "I would deem it more likely that they are quite occupied nursing potentially destructive war wounds to their pride – courting Divya would be more akin to engaging in battle than an actual exchange of civil conversation."

Newberg seemed rather confused by Boris' statement, but Divya, whose eyes narrowed distinctively as they averted from the flamboyantly dressed woman to him, would not endure ignoring the enticement of such an appealing challenge. "And courting you, sir? Why, it would be more akin to government espionage than an actual relationship."

Boris merely chuckled and sipped at his champagne. "I wouldn't dare deny such a claim."

Newberg laughed, her hand fluttering over Boris' chest as her giggles subsided. "Yes, yes…I think we're going to have another couple on our hands very soon!"

Her attention was then caught by a server passing by with full glasses on his tray and she left the pair to deliberate her words (which had been intended for encouragement) in horror.

After Newberg's inference about the sudden, unexplained appearance of Divya amongst her company, it seemed only she was the one affected by the lack of sensitivity in its delivery. Boris continued on his way, chatting with guests (which seemed a dodgy activity, considering his inability to be straightforward) and exuding his charms on everyone he came in contact with. And as he dabbled amongst his peers, Divya found herself standing blessedly alone by the bar, attempting to figure out why she was so inclined to be close to Boris (he was not ten feet away, and it was not by coincidence that he was so nearby) while nursing a club soda.

As she sat alone at the small bar, Divya reviewed her opinions of him, sifting through them to find some nuance, some overlooked symptom of her uncanny desire. _He is superficial, frustrating, evasive and pigheaded. _They all seemed to have negative effects on her view of him.

But as she began to stray into other thoughts, she found new observations that had not seemed so emblazoned as their predecessors – _charming, polite, at least to others, and generous. _She cast him a sideways glance, and watched, with a furrowed brow, as his own eyes averted from the man he was talking with to her.

She did nothing in response to the transference of his attention, but as he _leered _at her, she began to feel the same amount of disgust for him that she had felt before. And though it was only a moment before he looked away, returning his attention toward the conversation he was having, it was enough to spoil all optimistic thoughts she had reserved for him in the short time that they had been cultivated.

_Well, at least I entertained something pleasant about a particularly unpleasant man for a moment. That should count for something, if not for confessing my own temporary lapse of good judgment. And how swift he can be in ruining a person's good opinion of him._

A body slid into the seat next to her. "Scotch on the rocks."

Divya was hardly interested in talking with anyone as she, too, requested another drink. Her _employer, _as she so reluctantly called him, had been sure to ruin all hopes of decent discussion with his _terms. _

The person beside her, however, felt quite the opposite of her disinterest. "Well, _hello._"

"Hello yourself," she quipped lightly, and in scrutinizing the hoarse, deep intonation of the voice, she recognized it as belonging to a man. "And before you deem yourself too lucky for picking the exact right seat at _the _exact right time, I should warn you that I am not, will not, and will never be interested, no matter what manners you may desire to influence me with."

She could feel his eyes on her, but did not feel inclined to reciprocate the unwanted attention. "I want to thank you for attending and looking so…_ravishing_ in that dress, otherwise this benefit would have been a complete and utter bore."

"Yes, so I've heard. However, I cannot reward your gratitude, for I was not attracted to the idea of wearing this detestable thing in the first place," she hurriedly sipped her drink. "You may relay your thanks to my _benefactor._"

"Oh yes? And who might your benefactor be?"

"Perhaps you should ask him, as I have not one substantial answer for such a question. I hardly know the man myself."

As he spoke, Divya secretly assessed the man. By his voice, she could tell that he was older, presumably past middle age, and just as, if not more so, revoltingly narcissistic as Boris himself.

"A compromising situation, don't you agree, not knowing the man who supplies your lifestyle?" The man slid off his barstool, positioning himself in a closer proximity than what he had been in before. "Perhaps you should…consider a new one?"

She turned to him, finally, and found herself in the company of a slightly weathered man who looked no older than fifty. "Forgive me, sir, but I have provided sufficient responses for your bothersome inquiries. Shall I remind you of the instance, not a moment before, in which I told you that I was _not_ in the least bit interested?"

"Yes, dear, but I do remember, also, that it was _before_ you saw me," he retorted. "Second impressions seemed to be a little better than the first, don't you agree?"

Her countenance shifted in that of an admonishing glare. "Yes, so they seem – let us hope that the third impression, however, will never make its debut as the crowning glory."

The man laughed and reached for her arm as she tried to escape his advances. "My, you are a feisty one, aren't you? And so delightful with her words!"

"Let go of me, sir, or I assure you – you will be a very sorry man!"

"I would not like to see how wretched I should truly be if I dared let go of such a beautiful creature as you." He rebutted, pulling her back toward him as she struggled against his grip. "Now, now, lovely – let's not make a scene. I only want to talk with you."

But before the man could draw Divya completely into his grasp, one fair, elegant hand enclosed over the offending limb and detached it, with one supple movement, from her. She watched as Boris turned to her momentarily, gently replacing her arm to her side, and searched her gaze, glossy with soft throes of unease, with his – _are you quite alright? _

Boris looked back at the slightly inebriated man, his eyes roaming scathingly over the fellow's average height. "You, sir, may not be inclined to commence a scene, especially in these here," he gestured airily to the crowd. "Tentative surroundings. But I should not feel obliged to take such inclinations into concern if you dare lay your hands on this woman again."

He was entirely calm with his speech. Not one flicker of rage in his voice, nor his countenance, but the cool manner that he emitted from his character seemed malicious enough – he backed away slightly, and motioned toward Divya.

"Is this your girl, sir?" demanded the man.

Boris glanced questioningly at Divya, standing behind him with her expression throttled by immense perplexity, as if he had never seen her before. "Surely you are not insinuating that I own a girl as my own property?"

The man offered him a confounded stare. "Of course not. I only asked if she had come here with you."

Boris flourished his hand, motioning for the nuisance to excuse himself. "It would be in your ah – best interest," he paused, and the intensity of his stare seemed to make the man shrink. "To not ask questions and, most of all, to depart."

The stranger, whomever he had been and regardless of what title his lifestyle had earned for him, did not dare cross such a tall and intimidating figure, especially after being subjected to the peculiar rumors that had circulated around the particular person he was being threatened by. He would not risk his state of consciousness for a girl that would hardly matter in the morning, and would ultimately escape from his mind altogether before long.

Boris, upon finding that his exhibition of coercion had been successful, returned to Divya so calmly, so steadfastly, that she wondered if what she had only just witnessed had all been fragments of a rather puzzling dream.

"Come, Miss Katdare – I'm sure that such a mouth that has charmed half the men in this room cannot prolong its allure without something to eat?"

But as Divya was lead to the dining hall, still ensnared by the impassiveness of Boris' aura, she hardly harbored one wish for food.

* * *

Though Divya was hardly thankful for the fact that she woke in the middle of the night with a remarkably empty stomach (she hardly knew there was so much room in there), she could find the capacity to be grateful for the actual time. No one ever roamed the halls at such an hour, when the windowpanes were beginning to darken, the silver moonlit beams flitting away as the dawn encroached night's fragile borders. Even Dieter, whom Divya could hardly imagine a creature so determined who ever needed sleep, had retired to bed by then as well.

She could boast that she was the only shred of noise that dared shatter the hush of the sleepy residence as she slid quietly out of her room and into the gloom of the halls.

The kitchen was not too far from her quarters, but for the duration of her short excursion she forced herself to calculate every step and sharpen her ears for any sign of movement, lest she be discovered in her slinking about the house after hours. First and foremost, it would be a crippling blow to her pride, which she valued greatly as a result of living with an equally arrogant client. Second of all, Boris had made it quite clear with the representation and nature of his own disappearance, usually by late evening and into his study or his own bedroom, that he did not want anyone out and about for any reason whatsoever. Unless the master of the house was awake, and was capable of watching or having someone watch for him the activities of the people living in his residence, there was to be not one sliver of movement under that roof.

She entered the kitchen and flicked the light on after one last hurried glance over her shoulder. _No one there, Divya…now eat before you shrivel and die on the spot and then they will know that you were sneaking. Though, it wouldn't matter much then…_

The refrigerator, which was quite the large and costly-looking appliance shimmering in its polished silver hue, hummed nearby, and as Divya opened the door, the gaping mouth emitted something of a yawn, rushing out to greet her with its cold, crisp exhalation. A variety of food met her gaze, and though she wanted to dabble in all of it, try everything (_God forbid, there's even sushi in this despicable crisper!),_ she snatched merely one green apple and a cutting knife from its perfect array beside the cutting board.

_I wouldn't want the cook to miss anything, lest he turn out to be a kitchen-nazi and keep his supplies on a check list to make sure…_

She had barely touched the knife to the outer flesh of the apple, making the slightest of impressions into the bright green skin, when the sound of shuffling footsteps echoed across the tile and reached her ears – she turned, knife brandished, and was met with the sight of a bleary-eyed Dieter.

Well, at first – once she had caught sight of the man, his face, for the first time since she'd met him, began to twist into something of an expression as he cried out - pain. Scarlet began to seep, and then trickle, from his hand and Divya realized, at once, that she had cut him as he had put up his hands to protect himself from the swipe of her knife.

"Dieter!" She gasped, and the utensil clattered as it came in contact with the cutting board. "Are you alright? Is it terrible? Oh, I am sorry!" He held out his hand and she inspected the wound, finding it rather shallow but nevertheless susceptible to infection. "You know, where we come from, it is a commonly known fact that you must never surprise a woman with a knife."

"Why would you do such a thing?" He asked, grimacing as she wrenched his hand over towards the sink and thrust it beneath the flowing tap water. The deep, flushed shade pooled around the cut, and was washed away by the clear, cool liquid, turning it a light pink as it merged into the colorless stream.

At once she realized his meaning and offered him an apologetic glance. "I thought you were Boris."

"Why would you want to cut the Mister Rabanisch?" He asked as she compressed a folded paper towel to the slit. The blood flow was beginning to thin as he spoke.

Her eyes hardened as she considered his question. At length, she finished pressing the wound and Dieter flexed his hand twice, as if examining the damage. "Because, Dieter," she flung the blood-stained towel into the trash and set her jaw as she reverted her gaze to the butler. "The man is very much akin to a boil in desperate want of a good lancing!"

* * *

It was not until later that day, when Divya had stirred from her shallow sleep to the sound of her cell phone ringing, that she found herself equipped with a purpose. Hank had not received many calls in the last few weeks that she had been away, but had remembered a follow up appointment he had made some time before that had been almost entirely put out of mind as he was called to see another, more vital patient. Patients with diabetes took precedence over simple blood work.

She accepted the task, eager to leave the house before Boris could take to his usual habit of summoning her for another meeting or something much more abysmal. With her book completed, no emails to answer and not a sign of life from her mother or father's end of the world – she had nothing to do, if she was to tag along, but twiddle her thumbs.

Luckily for her, Dieter was already awake as she left her room, hastening her walk to the car. His hand, which she had wrapped after they left the kitchen during her nocturnal roaming, looked as if it would survive its skirmish with the knife episode.

He stopped and returned to stand before her as she called to him. "Dieter, I must inquire after your hand – out of courtesy and my own medical obligation."

"Sounds as if you house very contradicting emotions, Miss Katdare," he remarked drolly, and held up his hand, allowing her to unwrap it and check for signs of infection.

When she found none, she gently patted the unaffected part of his palm and said, "yes, will it looks as if you will live, Dieter. But you should be more careful around women and knives, now that you have seen the potential danger in such an activity."

"I will, I assure you," he said and gestured to his hand. "I will go wrap this back up now, yes?"

"I can do it-" She started, but he insisted that he would do it himself, as he saw she was already leaving before they had met. He told her he was quite capable of redressing a wound and bid her a good day before turning on his heel and treading quickly down the length of the long, decorated hall.

Before long, Divya found herself standing in front of yet another colossal house, checking the address quickly as she stepped up to the front door, rung the doorbell once and was allowed in by a middle-aged woman donning a clean summer dress and a pink cardigan draped over her shoulders. A wide-brimmed hat, most likely intended for a beach setting, indicated that the visit would not very long - there were other plans for the household that did not require her services.

"Ah, so you must be…" The woman paused and looked at the brochure she was holding. "_Dee-va Cat-dare_?"

Divya smiled politely. "Actually, it's Divya Katdare."

The woman's brow rose slightly in surprise. "Chinese?"

"Asian Indian."

"Ah, yes, well," the woman laughed, almost as if to herself. "I'm afraid I'm not quite the observant person. You'll forgive my name-butchering, won't you?"

"Of cour-"

"Yes, of course you will," the woman finished for her, and then extended her hand, which Divya reluctantly took. "You all do, I'm sure; I mean…it's part of the job, isn't it? I'm Anita Worthington, your newest client…I think. Anyway, Dr. Lawson sent you here to complete my blood work. Isn't that right?"

"Yes ma-"

"Alright, that's enough of the talking. Let's get down to business, shall we?"

Divya sighed and clenched her jaw as she struggled to restrain her annoyance with the rude, abrupt Mrs. Worthington. But knowing she was, doubtless, an important client, she followed the mistress of the house into the great room, where she was met with a fairly outlandish view – the house, she realized, was decorated in that of ancient Greece, complete with ornate pillars serving as part of the foundation for the house and depictions of gods and goddesses that was painted upon the ceiling.

_And to think I had deemed Boris the most ostentatious of the lot. I owe him a very humble apology…._

"Is here okay?" Worthington gestured to the crème-colored settee, which she flung herself upon without much thought as to where her body would end up. Divya considered this a strange sort of disguise for a command, and did as she was told – she sat down in the sitting chair, settled adjecantly to the sofa, and opened her medical briefcase.

"Hold out your arm, please," Divya pointed to the thin appendage which was angled inconveniently away from her.

Worthington eyed the syringe, placed on the end table between them, with deep-threaded unease. "I don't like needles…hence why I never bothered to go to med school."

Divya focused on preparing the needle in her white-gloved hands, but offered her a method of console. "It helps to talk, when you are afraid of something. It's a rather helpful distraction for patients with belonephobia - fear of sharp objects."

"What should I talk about?" The woman asked, still studying Divya with unwavering vigilance.

"Anything. Whatever comes to mind first, I'd recommend – that way you do not waste time that you could be distracting yourself with trying to select a topic that will be rendered useless after the injection is administered anyway."

"Huh…"Worthington snorted lightly, and Divya wondered how the woman could manage to sound lady-like with such a low-class gesticulation. "I never thought of it that way. I suppose I could talk about my husband."

"That will do."

"Well, what's there to say about the man? He's a good person, he really is – very sweet and kind, and treats me with the respect that I demand of everyone around me," said the woman, and she made a wistful sort of sound as she stared, with fixated interest, at the ceiling. "We were never in love, though…never could make it to that level of the relationship…"

Divya hesitated in the midst of her search for an available vein as the story began to take a very familiar shape in her mind.

"Is something wrong?" Worthington asked.

"No, no…not at all," she shook her head, the point of the needle shivering lightly as her hands began to acquire a tremor. "Continue talking."

A quirk of her brow was given in response by the woman to the younger girl's bizarre reaction, and she moved on quickly from the tedious topic. "Yes, well…as I was saying before…I married him because I felt I was obligated to. I was never good at making my own decisions – so I suppose he was generous in making it for me. He promised me comfort, money and a lifestyle beyond the expectations I had hoped for. And, what I especially liked – a summer home in the Hamptons. Could you imagine?"

The woman was enraptured by her glee in recounting her younger years, as Divya began to feel a wave of nausea break over her dazed head. At last, the needle slid into Mrs. Worthington's pale arm, but she continued talking.

"Anyway, I married him and we moved to France. That's where most of his business is," she paused to take a breath, keeping her eyes, which seemed strained around the outer corners, away from the sight of her blood filling the syringe. "My parents were very happy for me. And at first, I thought I was very happy for me too but…the novelty of the marriage soon wore off. I got very…lonely, after a while, even though I was with the man almost every day. Isn't that strange? To feel lonely, even at parties and charity events?"

Divya did not answer as she replaced the blood sample into her case. "Forgive me, Mrs. Worthington, but I must be going. I have other…commitments that I must tend to."

The abrupt manner in which she was received was repeated as Divya retreated from the great room; she was promptly dismissed the same way, and forgotten soon after as the woman continued on with her own tempestuous thoughts.

But Divya herself would not…_could _not return the favor.

* * *

There was a knock at the door just as Divya's sobs began to falter.

She had been weeping all afternoon, the pitiful side-effect of her meeting with the Mrs. Worthington. It had commenced just as she reached her car, causing her to linger for a moment in the elaborate driveway as she strained against the insistence of her sorrow that seeped into the corners of her eyes in the form of salt-tinged mist.

She suppressed them for the sake of her misplaced theory.

_If I do not cry, then I will not remember…_

The tears broke through their filmy barrier on her drive back to the main house.

Upon arriving, she was misfortunate enough as to run into Dieter on the way to the front door of the house, against all hopes of her returning to her room without so much as the slightest detection of her homecoming. He had been concerned as he saw her blotched cheeks and red-rimmed eyes, the light reflecting off the tears that continued to stream down her face, and begged for her to allow him to console her, as he owed her much already for her kindness in taking care of his hand.

But she rejected his offer as politely and collected as she could manage in the midst of her emotional upheaval, and at last merely abandoned him to stare quizzically, and rather worriedly, after her as she escaped to the house.

Therefore she was not at all surprised that there was a knock at her door as she reached for a towel, blotting her damp, reddened eyes. The only astonishment was that it had come so much later, as the evening sun had long since settled into the white-crested blanket of darkening ocean and disappeared, like a brushstroke of glowing vermillion, into the fading canvas of the horizon.

She glanced at her watch to see that it was nearing eight-thirty, and then gathered herself accordingly for the anticipated visit as she verbalized her assent to her caller's wish to enter.

A whirlwind of turbulent emotions, some as thick and combative as iron and others as soft and gentle as thread, wove themselves around her heartstrings and seemed to play upon them as she stared at her visitor. Her chest heaved and ached, and she hoped that her disgust and anger and anxiety were not evident as she found that it had been Boris requesting entrance behind the all-concealing door.

She did not want to say anything to him. Not that she was scared or feeling helpless in the face of her impending marriage, and that she could never dare harbor one shard of hope for escape from the betrothal. She did not want to reveal to him her anxieties, her despondency, and the fact that she had only just seen her life flash before her eyes in the form of a woman – whose situation in life had been similar to hers, and who had never truly found happiness in accepting the fate that was forced on her.

"Please," she beseeched, her voice cracking in the midst of its tremors. "If you have come to relay to me the schedule for an appointment of yours for tomorrow, then if you would be so kind as to find your way out of the door and muster the patience to return in the morning."

Boris did not seem at all concerned about her distress, or else he did not yet percieve it. "Is that any way to greet your caller?" He quipped lightly. "You would be a horrible hostess. But I am sure you knew that already."

"Must I resort to violence to make you leave or will you comply peacefully?"

There was silence for a moment, and such a dark, brooding lack of voice it was between them that Divya began to feel as if she was suffocating.

"This is not war, Divya," he replied, and she could easily measure the sudden shift of sobriety in his voice. "And this is not a peace treaty. It is an exercise of right of visitation in my own house for my guests, and I should think that you would not be so inclined to plead for solitude when you have it so very often here."

His voice was soft and sympathetic as he addressed her, very much akin to the same gentle tone one would use with a frightened child. Any other time, she would have been offended by the intonation of such a voice but, as her heart ached and her eyes burned, she could not have felt more appreciative of his mild-mannered decorum.

A moment followed in which the silence returned, different in its soft-edged approach, and he gave to her his peaceful offering – a china cup and, in it, the same warm, tawny liquid that had been given to her the night before. Whorls of steam drifted over the rim and disappeared as they reached their wispy hands into the predatory void of lukewarm air.

She gave an unappreciative laugh. "Is this your olive branch? A cup of tea?" Her mocking laugh was watery as it left her throat. "Come now, Boris…with all the money in the world, you can do much better than that."

"Perhaps it is through simplicity that I hope to win your approval."

She whirled on him, her rapidity a tempest as she attacked his commiserating words with indignation. "I am not a _game_, sir, and you would do well to remember that I am human, not a prize to be won! I have emotions that run far deeper than you would ever think to take into consideration and though your understanding of them seems to be lacking, I request that you treat them with the utmost respect that they deserve!"

He approached her rapidly, filling the space between them until there were only a few inches that separated their faces. Again, the intoxicating fragrance of his cologne invaded her senses, tangling in them and weaving their warm, alluring strands into her aggressive thoughts; she could feel, if she focused her sensation enough on the planes of flesh that covered her cheeks, her lips, her nose, the soft incantations of breath that gusted, like a seductive brush of skin against skin, over her like a calming midsummer breeze.

In the closeness of their proximity, her stance forceful and provocative against his equally intimidating posture, she could just barely trace the lines of gray that mingled with the sea-glass shade of his eyes, and such a shock of color so close to her vision made the intensity of his gaze all the more ominous as it transfixed steadfastly on her – willing her, tempting her to surrender to his games, his winsome manners.

And as she saw those captivating eyes, she realized – _they are quite…red, almost irritated. And his pupils…they are abnormally dilated._

She would not give in so easily. And though the entirety of the thirty-five days she had been staying in his house (he had counted them, paid such close attention to them as the severity of his loss weighed on his pride) had been, in his leisure time, devoted to winning her, he found himself still defeated…and it fascinated him.

A tear that had been clinging stubbornly to her long, dark lashes slipped down her cheek and Boris reached to wipe it away. Upon seeing her recoil from his gesture and turn her eyes away from him, he knew it was not welcomed – but he grazed his fingertips over the soft pinnacle of her cheek anyway, sweeping the small bead from her skin.

"Have you ever considered the possibility that you have entirely misconstrued my conduct towards you...._Divya_?"He inquired gently, speaking her name as if it were a symphony as the mild ripples of his warmth spread through her. He shifted his weight, regarding her with such hopefulness in his intent stare. "You may find, upon closer look, that what you consider the truth about my behavior is not at all the...reality of the situation."

He backed away from her, watching the large, liquid eyes gaze at him without even one fleck of betraying emotion, as if he were staring into the opaqueness of a blot of ink. Upon releasing her from his daunting presence, he gave one small bow of surrender and retreated from the room entirely.

_Is…he suffering more symptoms of his disease? _

_Or side-effect of drug abuse?_

And he left a very conflicted woman in his wake.

* * *

AN: I'm sorry these chapters are so long - but there is so much to convey in one simple chapter that I cannot help myself! As you can see, Divya is beginning to break after a month of living with the enigmatic Boris - she is around a very charming man, manacled to her obligation to her upcoming marriage (one that she does not want at all) and has now been shown her future if she does not choose to rebel against it (at least, in my version of the story). If you can all guess Boris' thoughts of Divya, then you will see that there is a bit of sexual tension between these two that I have been trying to portray - and it doesn't seem as if it will be very easy.

Just a little update if you guys are a little confused by my story-telling technique. :)

Thank you to those who have been following this story so devotedly and leaving reviews! I am glad you're enjoying, and hopefully I will continue to offer you more interesting chapters in the future.

Disclaimer - I do not own Royal Pains. Therefore, Dieter, Boris Rabanisch, Hank Lawson and Divya Katdare do not belong to me - they belong to USA and their creators.


	6. Chapter V: Seduction

_The listlessness of the house was only the first sign of the late hour. _

_Another was the darkness which pooled around the cracks of his doors, threatening to encroach the carefully lit boundaries of his illuminated haven. But behind the door there was a corridor - lost to the same somnolence that drifted over the entirety of the estate._

_A clock beside his droning computer, humming itself into electronic sleep, had numbers glowing in a vivid green – 12:01 am. The shutters were closed, doorways to the unfurling sunsets and sunrises he frequently witnessed by lamplight or with the slow, curling steam of his tea cup in the receding light of dusk. It was one thing he would miss, if he should surrender to his body's degeneration – but he had promised, long before its manifestations, that he would not defeat come so easily._

_At that moment, he could not care any less about the time; it was simple human resource to him, and right then and there, as his nose burned, but his body tingled with strength and expectation, human resource was merely a distant thought in his energetic head. _

_He blinked, briefly, as he reached for his cell phone and felt the force of his fingertips dancing across the pads – dominance, over his weakness. Supremacy over the frailty that his father and the fathers before him so easily yielded to._

_He would not bow to such a degrading disease. Boris Rabanisch would prevail._

_The phone rang only once before a voice, formality ruffled by strain, addressed the receiver. _

"_I expect a complete update on your progress by Friday."_

* * *

It had been a week since they had spoken directly, as Divya had feigned illness not only to escape his confusing presence, but also to assess her own misleading thoughts.

But as Divya heard the quick snap of a laptop being shut and the dull scathing scratch of metal on wood, she let her hand fall from the door and to her side, seized with nervous tremors. An irritable sigh threatened to escape her; it was not a place she wanted to admit standing in front of, at the threshold of the very essence of secrecy and conundrum itself – Boris' office door.

However, she was not left to wait long and simmer in her reluctance, as the handle turned and the partition, separating herself from her enigmatic client (and tormentor, if she took into consideration the ups and downs she'd been experiencing since the night he'd come into her room with that blasted tea cup and soft, soothing words), opened to reveal a ragged looking Boris, his eyes doused in dulling weariness and his countenance seeming to droop. She could tell, upon first glance, that he was very, very fatigued.

He smiled, a transient act of welcome, as he stepped aside and flourished his hand, as if to inspire her with his patient gesturing to enter on her own terms. "Ah, Miss Katdare – I could safely say that I would expect you to be the last person I would receive as a willing visitor."

She inclined her head. "Well, Boris, after your own _stimulating_ visit I thought it would be so very rude of me not to return the favor."

He did not answer at first as he poured himself a glass of scotch, the ocher color seeming to glow like honey in the filtered light streaming in from the open windows. A salt-sodden breeze flowed through the room, cool and crisp, and made the curtains spin and flutter as the current reached through their paper-thin threads.

"As your insolence toward me is quite a commonplace occurrence, I should think you would not care to exercise the propriety of reciprocating the gesture I had afforded for you." He said, and, as he turned to face her once more, drained the small amount of amber liquid in his crystal glass.

"It is a business visit, as I know you are so fond of such dull meetings with your associates, so do not let yourself become too comfortable by my feigned civility."

"I would never dare become too comfortable with anything you should offer for my taking, Miss Katdare. Please, do not feel as if you are obligated to stand – _sit_." He replied, and she could hear the dominance and bitterness in his voice – much too caustic for her to believe, as he was usually so nonchalant and amused in his delivery.

She stood completely still at her post, directly behind the chair which he had so forcefully insisted she take for comfort. _If he wants to play dictator in his twisted little game of dominance, I shall play the insurgent against his tyrannical will._

"No, I will not sit. I will only linger for a moment – Dieter has brought me the news that the house will be expecting important guests and that I am to be included in the invitation." She stared straight at him, hoping to catch a glimpse of divulging passion in the stolidity of his impassive eyes. When there was nothing to be found, the entirety of his gaze scoured for even a trace of emotion, she continued on. "Who are they, Boris?"

"If I told you who they were then it would cause the ruination of the very essence of suprirse." He remarked pointedly, and ambled toward the window as her gaze seemed to begin penetrating strategically built barriers.

Since Boris had been young (young and attractive, back when the days held more promise than they did for him now) he had been carefully fabricating walls. Walls that, behind the composure, the charm, were designed to keep the beautiful and clever and alluring women (very much similar to her), who hoped to claim his sentiments, out of his heart and stranded in the insignificance in which they belonged.

But Divya seemed to have a way with dismantling them, taking each piece from its place and, one by one, they crumbled like mere shards of rubble at her feet when they had once been intended as the foundations for his life. Like the defenses of Rome had fallen before him, he, too, had begun to capitulate to her - the siren's song flowing in the form of a determined, yet beautifull meldious and articulate voice through his mind, wrapping around his senses and bringing them to their knees. But his mind fought bravely against her bewitching influences; he could not have her to conquer him completely – he couldn't allow her to take away the only power over his body, his mind, his emotions, that he seemed to have left.

The window was much safer, in its lack of Divya, in comparison.

"I should celebrate the ruination of their essence. I detest them and if that was not obvious to you before, when I struggled against your surprise attacks of parties and meetings and the relentless secrecy of your lifestyle, then let me make it clear as crystal for you now – I demand that you tell me who they are!"

"Life is not as simple as formulating demands and hoping they are met with in the manner of compliance and obligation which you desire, Divya," he retorted softly, hardly risking a glance at her. "I will not yield to your stipulations simply because they are provided for me, and as the caretaker of my health and employee of my household, you should do well to remember your _place_."

The quiet which followed was received differently by both sides. Divya was as close to heartbroken as she had ever been before; but the tragedy of his rejection in considering her masked request, her concealed assessment of him, was misinterpreted as anger directed toward his obduracy.

At length, Divya revised her approach with one last attempt to decide the fate that as to reveal itself between them. "You may have won the battle – but have you won your war?" She asked, and advanced toward the window at which he was standing, encroaching on his unspoken desire for solitude. When she had neared him, her eyes fixated on his as they stared out of the open window, across the grounds and far beyond any tangible world she could reach, she summoned the will to speak to the stubborn man.

"I need for you to tell me, once and for all, if you will ever endeavor to capitulate to your own wishes, Boris. Will you embrace the nature of your humanity, or will you, in your adamancy to remain a machine in the face of life and happiness, continue to descend the destructive path which you have followed for so long?"

She gave him time to answer, and did not withdraw when he averted his eyes away from the lush scenery to settle on her. The patience and anticipation in her expression, illuminated by the sun which shone over her eyes, was unable to be avoided even if Boris wished it to be so. But as the suspension lingered on, her motivation falling away to bitterness of his conquest, he sighed and looked away.

It was not the air of subjugation which she found herself given, merely the same stubborness she'd recieved all along. Divya felt her insides begin to churn with anger, submerging beneath the dark desire of that same urge to beat the man into submission, into displaying his emotions.

But as she, too, gave one trembling exhalation, she realized the futility of her fury.

"Consider this my resignation, then," she said, her voice low as she strived to restrain the acrimony of her accepting defeat. "I will no longer impose my presence and strain your efforts to retain your privacy and, ultimately, desensitization to the emotions of those that surround you. In seven days, after I have fulfilled my obligation to Hank and my profession by finding you a new nurse, everything that has happened here will be forgotten - and I will be gone."

She then turned on her heel and a moment later, with the slamming of the door behind her, a flicker of encroaching weakness began to flicker in the light of Boris' unwavering gaze.

* * *

At exactly noon, as Boris had demanded that he and his guests be served by that precise time, Divya found herself wandering down the hall, feeling completely resentful of the fact that she felt herself compelled to attend. The first of her reasoning, in terms of not going, was that she did not technically work for him anymore and that any duties she had been imposed to fulfill pertaining to his commands were absolved upon her giving him notice of her resignation.

A more assertive idea came to mind – Dieter had asked it of her, in the most entreating of voices, and though it was all in favor of the master of the house and his fragile reputation, Divya could not refuse Dieter. He had become somewhat of a friend, and had tended to her while she had been pretending to be ill even though she had explained the intent of her prestense to him...as childish as the situation seemed to her in the present.

And so she found herself standing at the French double doors, her hand hesitating as it hovered over the polished bronze knob, for Dieter's sake....if she would not for her own or for Boris himself.

Boris, being the infuriatingly observant cad that he was (at least, he was in Divya's biased opinion), noticed the outline of her figure through the opaque etched glass and rose from his seat promptly upon discovering it. He turned to his guests, "Excuse me, if you would be so kind…it would be more conveinient for my manservant to traverse between rooms if there was no obstruction to detain him."

Before he received even a nod of approval from them, he sauntered toward the door in his habitual determined fashion and threw them open, revealing an astonished Divya.

And she was doubly surprised upon finding that the two guests of honor were her parents.

Her mother's eyes widened considerably as she took in the sight of her daughter, standing at the boundary between yard and home as if she had been there all along. "Divya, darling – I did not know you were invited to this little rendezvous as well! Why, I did not even see that you came in."

Boris removed a cigar from his breast pocket as Divya opened her mouth to explain, and proceeded to cut her off as she said, "I may provide explanation for her elusive behavior. Miss Katdare has been residing with me for the past month and a half or so, managing my…affairs as Hank has been quite detained by a family dilemma."

Her mother turned to look at Divya as if she had seen a ghost. Beside her, looking equally, if not more pale, was her father, who reached for his brandy as he muttered a bout of Indian under his breath.

"Divya, how dare - "

Boris struck a match and held his cigar over the wavering orange flare. "Do not fret, Mrs. Katdare. Divya has indulged in no such activity as you have obviously deduced."

"Then what is she doing here, sir, and why is it so very crucial that Divya should handle your affairs for you?" asked Mr. Katdare.

"Nothing so crucial that should demand her frequently," Boris replied, the scent of his cigar wafting through the stagnant air. Mrs. Katdare had been looking quite as if she would faint, but was beginning to regain her color as she stole a soothing drink from her husband's brandy glass.

"The both of you, really…I should be ashamed of the both of you, for resorting to such explanations."

Divya endeavored to laugh at the inanity of the subject, but it came across as more lackadaisical and forced than she'd hoped for. She stared awkwardly at the empty seat beside Boris, who looked vaguely smug as he watched the progression of her inner conflict as it reached her crestfallen features.

"Miss Katdare," Boris' hand waved gracefully over the empty seat, and the sound of his voice roused her violently from her contending thoughts. "Please…won't you sit?"

She tossed him an admonishing glare, but as her parents' expressions depicted their suspicions of unspoken, hidden affairs as a result of her balking, she slid uneasily into the seat. The fragrance of Boris' cigar made her cough slightly, especially as he seemed to exhale it in her general direction but she said nothing on account of the spicy scent - she knew it would only provoke him.

Dieter arrived from the kitchen, carrying a silver platter decorated with cocktails balanced on a delicate sphere of lace.

"So, mister-"

Boris looked at the man questioningly, and Divya, seeing the distress which her father was being abandoned to stumble through on his own, helped him, "Boris, father."

"Yes, Boris," Mr. Katdare tipped his cocktail at the man sitting adjacently to him and offered a somewhat approving look. "You must come to the wedding ceremony, as a new associate of mine. All of my business acquaintances will be there – it will be the perfect occasion to meet all of them appropriately."

Divya's heart began to thud dully against the hollow concave of her chest as her father spoke. Boris, however, seemed quite confused by the offer, despite its certain good intentions.

"Wedding ceremony," Boris reiterated, setting his cocktail on the doily that was spread across the table. "And to whom should I offer my congratulations for their engagement?"

Her mother's brow knitted, as if she had been approached by a most addling inscrutability. "Then Divya has not told you?" She scoffed, but her amused smile gave away her intended affinity. "That is quite like Divya – always forgetting her own marriage, as if it were a curse!"

It was very quiet for a moment, and Divya could not breathe. She kept her duress under the concealment of her stoic features, and glanced fleetingly at Boris, who she noticed had paled beneath this own tantalizing veil of poise. He blinked once or twice, and then cleared his throat, reaching for his cocktail once again. "Forgive me, I seemed to have misunderstood you – to whom do I owe the congratulations?"

"Divya, of course," her father replied, bluntly, and it was not a tone of voice Divya was accustomed to hearing in Boris' presence. "She has long since been betrothed to the son of a family friend, our dearest boy Raj."

"Oh, and he _is _the dearest boy in the world," Mrs. Katdare crooned over her martini. "We are lucky to have him, and Divya is very fortunate as well as to have secured such a good match for herself!"

"For myself, mother, hardly," Divya rebutted lightly. "It was you and father that arranged us; I had absolutely no involvement in the strategy."

"Strategy, Divya? Please, my dear…do not be so severe upon your own betrothed. You make it sound as if it were an obligation!"

Divya stood quickly from her seat, her body trembling as the world seemed to be falling all around her, and Boris stared into a void, unable to revive his charms to save her from her mother's maudlin speech over her daughter's engagement.

Her voice, too, felt the upheaval of her self-control. "Forgive me, mother…father," she said, and her eyes flitted between them. Her father looked rather disturbed by her display, but said nothing to stop her. "I have…business with clients that I have to attend to."

"Oh, but Divya…can't your obligations wait for a little while? We haven't spoken since our little outing, and that was nearly two weeks ago."

"Yes, but my evasions have not been purposeful, I assure you," she replied, and felt her throat begin to constrict, the breath in her lungs shallow and gasping. "Enjoy your drinks…and your company. Good day."

The legs of her chair squealed their protests against her rushed movements, and the grating sound seemed to wake Boris from his thoughtful daze as she escaped from the mild heat of the afternoon.

* * *

"The…intruders are gone. You may come out from your concealment now, and breathe easier knowing that they have departed from the grounds entirely."

He had found her in the library, staring blankly at the wall with an open book in her lap.

Upon realizing that her sanctuary had been uncovered, she hurriedly snapped the book shut and laid it gently on the end table beside her, the unyielding rigidity of the volume's spine pressed against the circular base of a lamp.

He sighed and eased into the settee across from her, assessing her with the same unnerving gaze pierced the layers of fear and distrust and aggressiveness that served as her protective camouflage against him. His hands folded, the long, pale fingers overlapping and curling and winding like roaming white vines in the way that they slid into the empty slots between the ashen appendages.

As he inhaled, he remarked, "so that is your conversation when you are not troubled by my presence? Pleasant, civil conversationalist?"

She found herself unable to give anything in response, out of the shock of his discovering her secret so easily and the affliction she had suffered on her pride as a result of her unearthed engagement.

He, too, sensed her duress, but did not relent as he found himself holding all the right cards to achieve another victory. Amidst the silence, there was only the rustle of his clothes as he abandoned his post across from her, entering into no man's land and crossing the borders of the opposition as he settled into one of the empty cushions on either side of her.

His eyes never absconded from their post, and as he found himself so close to her, saw the lines of melancholy etched into the corners of her crestfallen mouth.

"Divya," he paused, and his voice wove each syllable with such softness of breath that it seemed more akin to the ebb and flow of a passing breeze than the reality of her name.

She realized how close he was to her, how, if he moved his hand only an inch it would have grazed the length of hers."Why did you not reveal to me the fact that you are to be married?" He queried.

"You have no right, sir, to ask such questions," she replied briskly, scooting away from him in her most discreet attempt to remove herself from his daunting company "You, who would reveal nothing in confidence, can request nothing more from me than what has already been required in the form of your demands." She retorted wryly.

He gave a soft, exhaling laugh and contemplated the stillness of her appearance. "And we have reverted to the formality which formed the basis for our acquaintance. Have you forgotten my name so easily? Should I...remind you of it?"

Her eyes turned ferociously on him, and Boris found himself mystified by the fathomless black reflection he found there. "My memory is not faulty; I know your despicable name well. In fact, it is the last hope for your redemption which holds any sway over me. But a name can only go so far. And since you have made no plans to revise your distasteful manners which you present to me, I have no wish to associate with you whatsoever. I have only deemed it would natural that I would not address you in such an informal manner."

They lapsed into silence as Boris configured his own response. "Then I must insist that you are given payment for the time you so…futilely spent here." He said, and pulled, out of his pocket, two gold bars that gleamed even in the dim light of the gloomy quietude of the statuesque room.

Divya scoffed at the materialization of the ludicrous payment and fixed her eyes on a row of books situated in front of her. "I would never resort to accepting such an offer."

"And tell me – why is it that you should resort to refusing it?"

"For one, I do not need it. I have a comfortable lifestyle and have no desire to ruin the simplicity of it with such gaudy manifestations of what will only serve as reminders in the end."

"Well, then," he replied, his brow rising quizzically. "You state your opinion quite adamantly on the subject. It is unfortunate that I should have to reject your…rejection."

"You cannot force them on me."

"Quite the contrary, actually," he contradicted her, and reached for her hand, placing both of the heavy bars into the palms and curling her fingers over them. "I have successfully coerced them into your charge."

"I do not want them, as I have already stated," she shoved the shimmering bullion back into his lap. "And no matter of persuasion or provocation can change my mind."

"Whether you do or do not desire them is not the question," he retorted. "It cannot be considered a question at all, really. It is a matter that has already been decided for you, and you should not be inclined to reject such an offer that will allow you to live comfortably for the rest of your life."

"How many times must I convey my lack of interest in your compensation?"

"Perhaps you may…relay your disgust in a different language entirely." He replied indifferently. "German would do quite nicely."

"This is not a game! It never was and never will be!" She exclaimed, outraged by his carelessness in the face of such a dire situation. "It is as if I am merely a match of chess."

"Ah, I agree," he deliberated, crossing his leg over his knee. "And you are my queen, yes?"

Her eyes narrowed perceptively upon receiving his distinctive suggestion of mockery. "If I am your queen, then I am quite mistaken as to the fact that I have found you most despicably treating me as if I am merely your pawn?"

"Yes, you mistake me entirely, then, my friend."

She broke from her repose so quickly and so ungracefully that it startled even him from his state of persistent calm.

Her eyes focused on him with an unmistakable mark of disdain in their obscure blackness."Let me make it very clear to you, Mister Rabanisch." Her voice was low in its threatening snarl, and her lips had even begun to curl in their cruel posture; Boris was merely amused, no more frightened by her antics than he would be a bright-eyed doe.

Her words, however, did not give him the same amusement that her expression had so artlessly alluded to.

"I am _not _to be so lowly slighted as to be referred to as a companion of yours. And as for your disgusting offer, _I would not take your money if it were the last thing I was promised I could ever do in the world_."

Upon finding that his first strategy had failed miserably in the face of her tenacity, he decided to switch tactics entirely.

He, too, rose fluidly from his place on the loveseat and confronted her; Divya found that his intimidation aqcuired the pinnacle of its potency, holding sway over her thoughts for escape and every hope she had in the world, when he had closed nearly all the space between them. She tried to recoil, her natural instinct when presented with his masculine grandeur, but found she could not – his eyes had lured her completely into his wanton snare.

"Tell me….why did you not reveal to me that you were engaged?" He repeated casually, inclining his head as he searched her eyes for even a fragment of an answer.

"Why should it have any effect on you if I oppose the justification of keeping my secretive affairs…secret?" She rejoined. "I owe no explanation to you. You should comprehend such a concept better than anyone; I can be assured of at least that."

He disagreed, "perhaps you will find that I do, in fact, necessitate some explanation. I am your benefactor of sorts, am I not?"

"Not anymore." She seethed.

"Ah, yes…" he breathed, and leaned into her until his mouth was directly by her ear. She could feel the very physical presence of his fragrant aura, an unspoken invitation, an entrapment within itself, and every note and every wisp of its cool, soft scent seemed to break through the defenses of her resolve.

The alluring flow of his exhalation, fanning over her ear, enticed her and left her very well near spellbound. "But you were, and still are…in _my_ service." He whispered.

Divya could bear it no longer. His insistence, his voice, the very air of his decorum made her heart hammer in her chest and set a fire to her skin – a slow, heavy burning that threatened to consume her if she allowed his seductive manipulation to fill her completely.

And so she fled, leaving Boris behind in a state of bemusement as she disappeared from the library altogether.

* * *

News traveled rapidly in the Hamptons. It was a fact that could prove to be the saving grace of a reputation, or the ruination of one all at once. In fact, the circulation of gossip and conversation of the garrulous locals was so versatile that it even allowed Divya the pleasure of escaping Shadow Pond for a few hours to review a prospective application.

She could also thank Dieter who had made a few calls to the local newspapers and hospitals for her while she was in the company of her parents and a very supercilious patron who had a taste for expensive, and rather illegal, cigars.

_My savior. And yet the poor man is blind to the master of the house and his innumerable faults and irritating traits._

She found herself sitting at a table, a cup of chamomile tea in her hands as she desperately contrived for her unraveled nerves a web of safety to take comfort in, a sanctuary of warmth and herbs that could calm the whirling emotions in her that Boris had so easily unearthed from their dormancy.

_Cruel seducer…he should be violently restrained for such licentious antics!_

Luckily for her, the woman she had arranged the meeting with had only just arrived at the door – _I'll be wearing khaki slacks and a denim jacket. _There they were…plain as day before her.

Divya set aside the cup of tea to properly go to the woman and greet her, but as her location was discovered before she could rise, she offered the empty chair instead.

"Oh, gosh, _hello_," said the woman as her hand flitted nervously over her heart. "I am sorry for being a little late – traffic is horrible!"

_Conscience for punctuality…a good trait for Boris' demanding nature._

Divya motioned toward the chair after shaking the woman's hand. "Please, sit," she said. "And we can begin the interview as planned."

"Thank you, don't mind if I do." She replied and, as the passing waitress saw that the expected guest had arrived, ordered a glass of water in an attempt to situate herself more comfortably into her settings.

Once she had settled into her seat and gave a sigh of contentment, she folded her hands over the table surface and returned her attentions to Divya. "I'm Maria Catone…I'm a nurse, working at Hampton Heritage right now and I really don't prefer the emergency room hours. They are excruciating! I never have any time to…live, you know?" She then smiled at the woman sitting in front of her. "Anyway, it is very nice to meet you Divya," she paused and received her water graciously from the waitress, a smile on her face.

_Polite, too…another amiable, and necessary, mannerism._

_However…the time issue may be a little harder to resolve._

"Yes, well, I suppose we shall see if you hold me in such high regard after I introduce you to your prospective employer."

"Please," Maria replied enthusiastically. "Tell me all about him!"

"His name is Boris, and that's all I can offer you at the moment. Which brings us to our next dilemma - he is a very private person, and demands that his privacy is not betrayed to the public."

"Oh gosh…Boris? That really rich nobleman that everyone is so interested in all the time?" Maria seemed slightly disgusted by the mentioning of the man. "I don't understand it. Why is he so mysterious about everything?"

"I know that it seems rather…confusing. Privacy can induce an interest in the public so…enthralling that it could produce the opposite, undesirable effect of having secret affairs seep into societal knowledge," she sighed. "But I suppose the man is not completely artless…he has managed to keep himself out of the way of the gossip hounds for quite some time. Or else, he has simply outwitted them in every possible method that they have simply surrendered to his anonymity."

Maria's eyes seemed to retain a spark of question in them. "You speak of him as if…you don't like him at all."

_Oh dear…not a particularly good emotion to display in front of potential replacements. I should only hurt myself in betraying the cad's true nature to them before they have been completely integrated into his employment…_

Divya smiled, and though it was listless, she hoped it would nullify the thoughts she had just provided for Maria's contemplation. "Oh no…he is a…very kind and generous person. Smart and engaging in conversation as well…"

The woman laughed nervously. "And yet…your tone betrays you. See, I'm pretty good at being observant…don't mean to brag or anything but…"She shrugged lightly. "It's the way that it goes, I guess. He's unpleasant…I can tell from your elusive behavior…and your muscles look as if they're on springs."

"I do not appreciate being speculated in the manner of a pig at a country fair," Divya scoffed in reply. "I have said nothing of the sort and please…let me explain some things before we start the interview."

Maria's phone began to ring and she did not hesitate to pick it up. She held up a dismissive hand to Divya, and she watched as Maria's expression became gradually darkened by the reception of bad news. _That, or she is one stunning actress…perhaps a career in theater should be pursued for her._

The woman gestured to her phone before slipping it into her purse. "I'm really sorry but…I've gotta go. My husband has some sort of emergency…this will have to wait. Can we reschedule?"

_Oh, dear…a husband? That __**won't**__ do at all…_

Divya rose from her chair, desperately struggling to contain her disenchantment at finding her interview to not have only gone awry, but also leaving her without expectation of leaving Shadow Pond as early as she had planned.

"Do not bother," Divya replied bitterly. "You do not fit the requirements for the profession."

And Divya left the little café in the same state of vulnerability and frustration as she had arrived.

* * *

AN: Hooray! Almost five hundred views of this particular work of fiction...and I am officially half way done! I won't tell you how many chapters there will be. You will have to wait and see for yourself...however, I hope to have this fic done by either the end of this week or next. We shall see, won't we?

Anyway, thank you again to everyone who has continously supported this story! I am so glad that you're enjoying this as much as I enjoy writing it. Please excuse any grammar mistakes or anything else of that matter. It's 12:30 and I am quite run out of the stamina to check everything over three times. I believe I got everything but...one cannot always be sure.

Disclaimer - I do not own any of the characters of the original series, Royal Pains. Divya Katdare, Mr. and Mrs. Katdare, Boris and Dieter all belong to their creators. Maria, however brief her part in the story, is of my creation.

_Playlist for Clandestine (Want to add to the list? Let me know!)_

_Safe by Britt Nicole  
Waking by Hayley Taylor  
Feel the Light by Britt Nicole_


	7. Chapter VI: A Matter of Control

She had waited long enough.

Two days had passed since Divya had fulfilled her requirement in finding Boris a suitable replacement for when she had gone, and still her suitcase remained half-empty. There was a part of her, she knew, that did not want to leave; she had become quite friendly with Dieter, whom she considered a companion of sorts, and her medically professional side feared leaving Boris' fragile health in anyone's hands that were not her own.

At least, that was her own version of the explanation.

There was something else; behind the reluctance to leave and the apparent significance it had on her ability to gather her belongings in a timely fashion, a sort of emptiness which threatened to show if she dared turn her mind toward thinking of leaving. Her schedule, which she had set the day she had given her notice of resignation, had been to leave within the same hour she found herself a replacement. That hour had long since come and gone, withered and crushed to dust in the sands of passing time; it was overdue, that she should make to leave, elude the haunts which began to encroach on her safe boundaries, beginning to overshadow her every move.

And to escape Boris was the most promising excuse of all.

There was not even a knock at her door to warn her as the entrance was thrust open and a figure stood in the middle of a rather exquisite burgundy rug. A soft, resonating _click _seemed the only noise in the heavy silence of the room; the sound of the door sliding back on its hinges.

She knew precisely who it was, standing behind her, his all-consuming gaze beginning to seep into her skin as he willed her, with his eyes, to turn and face him. It was a demand that she had long since found herself relieved of complying to; he no longer held any influence of power over her every action, over every word that she spoke. In the course of the month she had lived with him, he had managed to retain nothing for himself that pertained to her, even failing in his hopes to earn her high regard, her camaraderie and even her affection.

For once, it seemed as if Boris had failed in his carefully concocted plan; it was a surprise to him.

So astonishing, in fact, that he could not simply let the situation of their divergence settle into their loose ends with her departure; he could hardly think of letting her go in such a way.

He cleared his throat, and Divya could almost detect the strain in his habitually detached tone of voice."You are not leaving?" He queried; Divya knew it was not such a simple question as she would have hoped for.

_Boris, really…another one of your futile games? I will not hear it._

She did not even catch a glimpse of his strained countenance, impervious to the alteration in his air of speaking and manner of expression."I have told you before. My departure is hardly a new concept to the entire household; why should you be exempt from accepting it, especially given that it is you who is so relieved to watch me go?"

"I have said no such thing," he replied, venturing forward to stand closer behind her, and her body was so aware of his presence that the heels of her bare feet could only just feel the tremors of his light footsteps across the floorboards. "Nor have I entertained such an idea."

"You entertained the idea, sir, when you decided to begin treating me as a slave to your will." She replied dryly, shifting her weight as she turned to fold a pile of shirts which were strewn across the perfectly made bed.

"I prefer my house to be free of unwanted insurgence." He countered nonchalantly.

"And it just so happens that I prefer to be free of tyrannical employers," she challenged abstractly, continuously moving as she filled her duffel bag. "In some twisted form of logic, our concepts match."

A bout of silence filled the spaces between them, and for a moment, Divya forgot all about him, concentrating on carrying out the dreadful task of packing her belongings before she lost patience completely in its slow-moving progress. It was such a long, brooding lack of exchange between the two that, by the time she felt his breath brush over her bare shoulder, she had forgotten the existence of her company entirely.

She flinched, only slightly, and maintained her casual muteness without giving any inclination of her unease in regards to the omnipresence lurking over her shoulder, concealing her duress from the man that stood directly behind her.

"Miss Katdare," He spoke into her ear, his voice low and so utterly sensual that Divya's hands froze in the midst of their fervent folding. "I will not stand back and allow you to leave in such a…_childish_ fashion."

"The only admittance of childish antics here would be required from you, Mister Rabanisch," she quipped darkly, her own voice lowering to match his. "And you will see me leave, whether I obtain your approval of the decision or not."

The movement was so sudden, so severe on her nerves that she nearly resorted to panic, dropping her crumpled shirt to the floor between them as she found herself facing Boris' cruel, cold eyes. His hands still lay on her shoulders, not at all violent in the gentle way they settled over the exotic russet flesh beneath them. It had been only an exhalation of frustration that marked the moment he had forcefully whirled her around to face him, asserting wordlessly that he have her full attention. He would _not _be ignored.

It was the first time Divya ever witnessed such loss of control in him, and she could not so easily say she was comfortable with such reckless abandon on his part.

His voice wavered between the borders of his contending emotions, rage sinking into the undercurrent of his phrase, but he could not bring himself to shout at her.

"Divya, I _demand_ that you stay."

She, however, would not afford him the same luxury of exempting him from the power of her voice. "You can demand nothing of me, nor attempt to alter my decision to leave, because I no longer work for you!" She shouted.

He felt the tremors of her own growing fury in the arched swells of her shoulders briefly before she had removed his hands from her and escaped to the window.

His gaze trailed softly after her. "And yet you remain. And yet you are here, in this very room…with me." He observed pointedly, following her quick footsteps.

"Such distasteful scenery will change for me in a matter of minutes, once I finish collecting my things and once I rid myself of my bothersome _pest_." She scowled, her brow casting dark, cruel shadows over the flashing black pools of her eyes.

"Miss Katdare-"

"_Leave_, Boris, or I shall eradicate your presence from my sight _for_ you!" She shouted in reply, and, once again, tried to escape him.

He had seen enough of her attempts for liberation from his influence. His hand extended, closing over her forearm as he pulled her to face him once more.

But no sooner was she met with his tall, intimidating stature once again, her body was smashed against the wall, her back pinned unrelentingly against the plaster and it shivered beneath the weight of the collision.

It was not the only form of contact she was met with upon receiving his aggressive gesture as Boris crushed his mouth to hers, the soft warmth of flesh closing over lips while her body pressed itself flush against his own lithe, powerful form.

Divya vaguely felt her face being captured byhis callused hands, already too lost in his enticing breath which flooded through her, and her features softened in the midst of the rush of his burning desire. Every last part of her waking mind was enraptured by the desperation of his embrace, radiating off his insistent figure like heat around her, and she began to feel as if she were on fire while her knees buckled beneath her, the same arduous upheaval that had flourished in him.

She arched her back, her chest forced against his and she was swept closer into his willowy body.

Divya's own hands spread over his shoulders, the pads of her fingertips sweeping and reaching progressively downwards, and each muscle that met her hands beneath the thin, hot material of his shirt seemed to tauten as they felt the contact.

He gasped against her as his lips parted fleetingly, brushing against her unraveling skin, her resolve melted into the vehemence of his ardent embrace, enveloping her once more with the heat of his mouth.

Not a flicker of thought occurred to her as she allowed herself to be ravaged by him…not one small thread of contemplation within the darkest recesses of her mind could be found even as he had begun compose his gentler advances, lovingly gathering the outline of her lips into his, tracing each curve, each line, until the taste became familiar, committing every fractured shard of sensation to memory. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't think...she could barely stand under such comprimising circumstances. Ensnared by the seductive heat of his body, she could only manage to feel _him._

Despite her prior indignation toward him...she could not even think of letting him go.

The force of his lips as they grazed over hers softened, but his hands, in their grip on her face, did not seem to have any intention of unfastening their vigorous grip. "I will admit that I am…a selfish creature," he murmured against her, his breath sprawling over warmed, trembling flesh like caressing fingers. "I have never begged for anything in the entirety of my life, Divya. But I will beseech you now - _please_...**stay**."

Her eyes fluttered open, heavy with lust, and they revealed to her a world of piercing sea-glass green, lost in its own violent throes of fervent passion. She could drown herself in those eyes, fathomless in their brooding shade, and yet so relentlessly enticing that she should be happy to suffocate beneath its pressing waters. Divya wanted to reach into them and find every last fragment of severed soul that drifted behind the filmy semblance of poise; but she let them drift away, ghosts adrift within the placid grey-green waves.

And then, Divya began to emerge from the saturating blindness of her sentiments...finding something other than the sway of his slow-darkening eyes.

Behind the merging of his wistful look there was a certain rigidity – something that could not be detained by the dismantling of his own restraint, basking in the glorious haven of a woman's fragrant body. The immensity of her yearning began to slowly unravel as she recognized the hardened expression – it wasn't a declaration of irrepressible need for her at all; it was a declaration of ownership, a method of enveloping that which he considered his own with his stifling shroud of control...in an endeavor to disable any hopes for escape.

Not out of wanting her, but wanting to maintain his _control_ over her…

She searched his face only once, desperately pursuing the flash of adoration she prayed she would see in him. But there was nothing, and only at first did her eyes portray the deep, agonizing realization of his cruel cunning.

At last, they were shed of their sorrow as she reached a point of resolve. "No."

Her cogency returned to her as she tore the unyielding grasp of his hands from her flushed cheeks, biting her lips ruefully as the taste and the sensation and the warmth of his mouth seemed to linger on them like specters fof devotion – she could feel him, but they seemed only phantoms in the face of his controlling nature. Whether he cared for her or not, she could not know – and perhaps, she mused bitterly, she would never be given the truth at all.

He did not move as she returned to her activity which she had been rapt within prior to their encounter. Boris merely stood at the wall which gradually released the warmth of her body, where he had been pressed to her, merging as one heated soul only a moment before. Her footsteps were adamant in depicting their purpose, pacing from one end of the room to the other as she resumed, and soon finished, packing.

Then there were no footsteps at all in the room…they had departed completely, disappearing into the hall and resounding off the lavish decorations of the walls.

At last, upon their removal from the room, he detached himself from his perfectly unmoving stance, moving toward the window where he watched as she slid into her car and ignited the engine.

And as she drove away, her tires crushing the rocky foundations of his driveway, the last barricade that was left in him plummeted into the void beneath the demolished kingdom of his solitude, leaving only an aching heart in its wake.

He sunk into the chair by the window, sighing as he buried his face into the flesh-soft refuge of his hands.

* * *

Not long after Divya arrived home (for the first time in a month) from the unsettling situation she had only just found herself involved in, her phone, shoved haphazardly into the pocket of her slacks, began to ring. Slightly spooked by the suddenness of the sound, she reached hurriedly into the material of the compartment with shaking hands, and the device slipped out of her horribly quivering fingers just as she successfully flipped it open.

She could hear the voice over the phone, sounding worried, as she fell to her knees and groped for it, appendages rendered simply inept by the incessant shaking.

_Hello? Divya? Where are you? Divya, are you there? Speak to me._

At last, she pressed it against her ear, and her breath flowed tremulously over the receiver. "Divya, darling…are you quite alright?" Inquired the voice.

Thick, Indian accent…kind, gentle intonation…it took her a moment of struggling through her misplaced thoughts to remember such characteristics belonging to Raj.

"Ah – yes, of course," she swallowed and hobbled uncertainly toward the couch. "I-I'm fine, Raj. Quite better than fine…as fine as one could be, actually!"

"That is…a lot of fine in one sentence," he remarked, sounding only half amused by her strange behavior. "Is there anything I can do for you? Anything at all?"

She scoffed. "Oh Raj…as sweet as your offer truly is, it is quite impossible for you to do much of anything for me half way around the world, don't you agree?"

"Not if I am flying in from Los Angeles tonight." She could detect the enthusiasm in his voice, but seemed to find it slightly forced as his laughter resonated through the phone. "I'll be there in three or four hours, depending on the weather. Probably around five o' clock. Want to go out for a drink when I get there?"

"A drink, actually, sounds fantastic right about now," she replied airily, and glanced over at the clock nearby. _2:30. _"But, Raj please – if you are exhausted, do not exert yourself. Jet lag can render you quite useless, you know."

"Not enough to keep me from that drink I was mentioning. Meet me at the local cafe, the one we always go to...Six o'clock. Alright?"

"Alright." She found herself surrendering to the thought of a cool, soothing drink already.

"And Divya?"

"Yes, Raj?" She asked, and he sighed reluctantly in return.

"Prepare yourself to discuss _wedding_ details."

* * *

_The afternoon was golden. Soft and flowing, with the winds carrying specks of brine off the nearby sea shore, thickening the very air of the house as Dieter led the woman down the hall. For the entirety of the week she had been there, she had asked such unforgivable questions – why won't he tell me what's going on? Who is he?_

_And most deplorable of all…why does he need me here?_

_Dieter had known it was only a matter of time before Boris became impatient with the woman. Ignoring her completely at times, his lack of interest in her existence was quite clear; but of course he was so intuitive enough to see that his absence would be noticed and blamed it on the business calls that had been assailing his phone for what had become a long and almost unendurable week._

_The master of the house had such clear intentions for the woman that even Dieter, before he knocked thrice on the office door, knew what her fate was in a matter of moments. He heard the soft, absent, 'come in', echo from inside and the manservant let his fingers fall gracefully over the bronze knob – no sooner did he open the door did he brandish his hand, gesturing that the woman enter the room before he was forced to nudge her in himself._

_"What am I doing here?" She whispered hoarsely, her eyes beginning to liquefy and flicker in their frightened state._

_"Mister Rabanisch requested an audience with you for a very important business matter," Dieter replied temperately, attempting to console the girl's wild, and quite panicked, nerves._

_"Ah, yes, my guest arrives," Boris rose from the seat behind his desk and straightened his jacket as he pushed back the chair in his way. "Dieter, __danke schön._ _Warten vor der tür."_

_Dieter nodded only once and left the room completely, abandoning the wide-eyed girl in the midst of her growing alarm. Boris, however, was much too calm in his lack of concern for the girl's paranoia, and as he approached her, gave a long, weary sigh that could almost, if she had looked closely enough, have been afforded to relief._

_"It has come to my attention that you and I," he began, lowering his voice as he glanced warily at the door. "Cannot seem to find common ground for an understanding. Comprehension of another must first take root in basic knowledge of your employer's wishes and requirements, and if it cannot be established then – the bloom suffers and clings to some semblance of unhealthy sustenance until it withers away completely. Don't you agree?"_

_"Excuse me…sir?"_

_He waved his hand brusquely."No, there is no excusing it…you have been offered a week to settle in accordingly, and I believe you have done so to your best to your abilities. Divya Katdare relayed to you the essence of my lifestyle, did she not?"_

_The woman shook her head. "No sir. She was very secretive about your…erm…way of life."_

_Boris felt the corners of his mouth curl upwards in a nostalgic half-smile. "Yes, well…she was quite accurate in her knowledge of my terms. You, however, are not even…adequate, I suppose I should say, in accepting them.."_

_Then came the beginning of the groveling as the hint was given that there should be an occasion for dismissal in the heavy air. _

_"Sir, please," she said. "If it has been about my questions…I will stop them immediately. I promise."_

_"Promises are hollow creatures. They do nothing for the recipient but endeavor to persuade them to bestow mercy and that…one last chance that they are so disinclined to give," he turned away from her, ambling toward the desk where his alcohol supply was kept._

_The amber liquid, as it was poured, was the only noise in the room, the woman's hope hanging by one last thread as she watched him take one testing sip of the scotch. She dared not breathe in fear of provoking her superior._

_Drink in one hand, and the other hanging listlessly at his side, he contemplated her figure. _

_Unlike Divya, she was a rather pathetic creature in comparison – slouching and meek, not at all the grand and confrontational manner of Divya's tall, erect posture. The woman never met his eyes, and he hardly knew the color; but Divya's he had committed fully to memory, the dark shade like a sort of void. But it was a void always turning and shifting, always moving. _

_He felt that, when he looked into Divya's eyes, he saw an entire new world there that was worth the effort of exhuming from her own depths of secrecy and, if he looked close enough, watched long enough…he could feel himself begin to simply disappear into the black fathoms of her intricately woven gaze._

_Boris, seized by his curiosity, approached the woman with such swiftness that she gasped, dread coating her senses, as his free hand captured her chin and forced her to look up at him. There were eyes, certainly; Boris was sure of it. _

_But unlike the purposeful abyss of Divya's dark, beautiful orbs, obsidian in the shadowed hollows of their russet- fleshed sockets, the gaze he considered was a different sort of emptiness altogether. Wanting of pride, of tenacity, of feeling, of desire and life…of Divya. The eyes he saw were merely listless, barren marbles in the woman's equally inisipid countenance._

_And at once he realized what it must have been like for Divya to look into such a vacant stare…the woman's gaze was so similar to his own that it was almost unnerving in regards to the comparison._

_He could suffer her presence no longer. "You are officially released from my employment. Go, and do not ask anymore questions - I fear that they are half of what has earned you your lack of profession."_

_"What's the other half?" She probed hastily._

_Boris sighed, a mark of frustration with the woman's noncompliance. But then, he began to entertain the question – it was a good one, once he had realized its purpose._

_And once he had found his answer, the very concept was simple, clear as the day before him_...You are not Divya...

_He looked at her as pleasantly as he could manage and then motioned gracefully toward the door. The woman took the vague, yet at the same time clear, insinuation that she was to leave immediately, and she walked out of the office, leaving Boris in a tangled weave of very troubled thoughts._

* * *

Despite the fact that she was entering a _dressmaker's _shop for her _wedding gown, _Divya thought herself to be very lucky to have at least been spared the awkwardness of having Raj come along too. It was also quite fortunate that her mother was strict on traditions – the men were not to have any opinions went it came to the wedding attire.

"Oh, Divya, I am so pleased that you and Raj finally took the time to go over your wedding a little more," her mother cried gleefully as entered the shop. "It is so very fortunate for us that we have such a lovely son entering into the family."

_Yes, and it is not so fortunate that I am the one to marry him while you croon over mere idea of it._

"Ah, Mrs. Katdare, I presume?"

A man, who looked no older than sixty in Divya's opinion (though he could have been even the slightest bit younger), came rushing out of the back of the building, his hands outstretched to greet his valued customers and Divya could only just trace the obsequiousness in the curve of his overly enthused smile.

_Definitely harboring same sex tendencies as well, it looks like._

"Oh, I have just been so happy that you, the _famous_ Mrs. Katdare, would buy your daughter's dress from me!" The man seemed to squeal in the midst of his ardent speech, and Divya could not have been more remorseful of her insistence on staying in the Hamptons to buy a dress than of almost anything else in her life. His sycophantic frolics in the presence of her melancholy were disgusting in contrast.

"Anyway, I only have a few selections here as of right now but…"He grinned lightheartedly at the woman, motioning dismissively toward the back with his hand. "I'll have more Indian style dresses to come."

"How wonderful." Mrs. Katdare seemed on the verge of swooning, but she clamped her hand down on Divya's forearm before the faintness could overwhelm her and she pulled her daughter into the spotlight. The man looked on her with such cleverly hidden disinterest that Divya suddenly felt see-through, paper-thin beneath the slant of his critical stare.

"Oh, well, my girl," he said, his intonation adopting a sort of admonishing lilt. He turned her around, inspecting her figure, and Divya merely sighed as she allowed herself to be weighed, measured and silently criticized like a pound of tenderloin in a market. "You are quite the little skinny duckling, aren't you? Not at all like your mother here just yet, are we? Oh, but I'm sure you'll be there soon…you're a little one yet, hmm?"

He touched her nose in what had been intended as an adoring gesticulation, but Divya merely found herself struggling to contain her aggravation instead.

"Shall we….begin looking at the dresses, then? If that would be…quite alright with you?" Divya intervened before the man could say anything more to slight her; she was, most definitely, not in the mood for his playing favorites amongst the mothers and daughters.

He cast her a sidelong glance, almost shrinking as he received her tone of voice. "Yes ah – let me see what we've got and we can ah…start, yes?"

Once the man had disappeared into the back of the building, mother and daughter were finally left alone to resume the equanimity that at least Divya had desired (which was why she sent the ingratiating little weasel back into his burrow in the first place). Mrs. Katdare craned her neck over the displays which obstructed her view; finding nothing but tall, sleek mannequins and crystal decorations that would hear her private conversation with her daughter, she turned to Divya, who appeared as if she had grown tired of the outing already.

"Divya, darling…I am begging you, as your mother; do attempt to curb your temper." She reprimanded quietly.

Divya cleared her throat and nestled her hands into the deep-set pockets of her khaki slacks."Yes mother. As long as he does not continue to insult me, I shall not see it fit to dismiss him."

"He is not insulting you dearest," Mrs. Katdare sighed. "It is his job to criticize."

"Yes well, if that is the reason then he can take his criticizing profession elsewhere. I do not want it and I will not stand for it…not in front of my own mother for goodness sake."

Rustling emitted from somewhere behind the stylishly decorated aisles, a voice following soon after. "Here we are!" Said the man as he slid into view, a catalogue balanced in his grip. "We shall look at them first and decide which one will look best on Divya from the bird's eye view…no?"

"Of course, whatever you should suggest! We are quite new at this you know," Divya's mother confessed blissfully. "Our only daughter, and she will be married by the beginning of next year!"

"Oh, I do _love _winter weddings! There's so much you can do with snow it's exhausting to think about!" He exhaled wistfully as he approached them with the book, and the two women sat down on the settee adjacently positioned to where they had been standing. They had eased into the cushions together, a spot left for the man on the right side of her mother – but instead of submitting to their unspoken wishes, he nudged his way in between them so that he was in the middle with the wedding dress catalogue.

Divya had the right mind to give him a smart walloping to the face, knock his foolish black-rimmed glasses off his nose for being so impatiently pushy. But as her mother detected the aggression in her daughter's expression and demeanor, Divya heard a small sound of disapproval – Mrs. Katdare looked over at her with an abundance of severity hardening her eyes. She dared not make one move if it should provoke such a daunting look from her otherwise mild-mannered mother.

But no sooner did the man sit did Divya's phone begin to ring. It vibrated wildly in her pocket, drawing her attention away from the gaudy embroidery of the gowns and directly to its desperate ringing.

"Excuse me for a moment, would you?" Divya said and exchanged one long, pleading glance with her mother. Mrs. Katdare hardly looked pleased with the spontaneity of the call; in fact, she seemed to suspect the phone as a large contribution to some conspiracy against the engagement. It always interrupted, always robbed her of Divya's focus and, dare she say it, _interest_ in the matters pertaining to the upcoming wedding.

But seeing the look in her daughter's eyes was enough to sway her; she nodded briefly, but did not restrain the disgruntled shadow which darkened her countenance.

Divya, however, could not care less about her mother's disapproval. She was free for the moment.

The phone flipped open and immediately she was greeted with the chattering sound of terrified nonsense.

"Hello? Please, slow down…I can barely hear what you are saying," she said, and it dawned on her as she detected the harsh accent in the voice. "Dieter…Dieter, please. Dieter, calm yourself!"

"_Miss Katdare, it is very urgent. You must come now! It is a matter of life and death…"_Dieter begged, and even through the phone she could tell that the habitual calmness of the manservant, of the house, was hanging by one rapidly fraying thread.

"Life and death, Dieter...what are you talking about?"

She asked the question, but felt instantly ignorant for even wasting the time in inquiring after a situation that should have been so utterly clear to her even without the man's enlightenment (and it would have been a long, painful process at that in the midst of his apparent distress).

_Boris…_

"Dieter, what has he done?" She hissed into the receiver, glancing briefly toward her mother to see if she had drawn and unwanted attention to herself. "Tell me, quickly!"

The man paused for a moment, and Divya's heart began to thud dully against her shallow lungs. It had become so very hard to breathe…

"_Mister Rabanisch…Divya, he is **dying**_."

* * *

AN: Hey! We're almost there...to the end, I mean. I just recieved a very convincing message from a fellow Boris fan that has offeredm me an ultimatun. Well, it is all a surprise for you (the readers), but expect a new story from me either tonight or tomorrow...I already have a plot in the works and will be happy to share it with you. This story, however, will not be abandoned in light of this new story's arrival. If the German is wrong, feel free to correct me - I have no knowledge of the language at all.

And yes, that was a cruel cliffhanger...at least, if I were a reader, I would think it was! Any feedback will be welcomed and appreciated...it does help me feel more inclined to update faster, knowing that there are people who enjoy my writing. And I am very grateful to have such avid reviewers - thank you so much for your support!

Disclaimer - I don't own any of the Royal Pains characters. Divya Katdare, Boris Rabanisch, Dieter, Mr. and Mrs. Katdare and Raj all belong to their creators. All I own are the nameless little characters I create to initiate turmoil. ;P

_Playlist for Clandestine (Want to add to the list? Let me know!)_

_Safe by Britt Nicole  
Waking by Hayley Taylor  
Crushcrushcrush - Paramore__  
Feel the Light by Britt Nicole  
Decode by Paramore_


	8. Chapter VIII: Part 1 of 2: Panic

Behind the frontage, Dieter was falling apart at the seams. He had, haphazardly, gained control of his physical self for both Divya's sake and for the sake of his benefactor, but there were intimations of panic behind the strained countenance.

At first Divya began counting the minutes before a panic attack or something quite similar ensued, but as she saw his worried glance she stopped him in the midst of his hasty steps and took his shoulders, giving them one vicious shake in hopes of reviving the calm, careful Dieter she had come to know.

"You have to keep yourself very calm. Do you understand? Panicking never made anyone better!" She then let him go and resumed their quickened pace.

As they walked, she consoled him. "I know what these symptoms entail, so there is a greater chance of my saving Boris than there is of losing him. Call Hank! I will stabilize him, but I will need his doctor to know fully what to do for him."

They reached the office at last and, upon entering, Divya beheld a sight she had hoped never to see – Boris, lying on his back in a pool of his own spittle and vomit, looking so pale and so fragile that the irrational fear of breaking him if she dared touch even his hand surfaced in the form of a gut-wrenching realization.

"Dieter, I will need your help," she looked across the paper-thin, cold body, Dieter looking back at her. "We need to open his airways – he has overdosed on cocaine and he may be choking on his own vomit. Open the bag and hand me the oxygen tank, that plastic tube there and the paddles."

He quickly retrieved all of the items from the bag as she snapped the white, plastic hems of her gloves over her wrists, and Divya first reached for the tube as he passed the items to her. Opening his mouth, she gently inserted the tube into his mouth, guiding it downwards until it reached its destination.

"Dieter, turn on that tank. Quick!"

He flicked on the power and, upon seeing the clear plastic become clouded, she removed the metal inserter and taped the tube securely over his mouth.

"I think he will be fine, once we cleanse his system with the saline…"Divya pulled the case toward her, taking out a needle and a bag of the typical dose of saline.

"We will need to hook him up to a heart monitor, keep close watch on his vitals until Hank arrives. Would you…mind assisting me, here? With carrying him to the settee over there by the window…" She picked up his arms and, as Dieter lifted his legs, heaved all the weight she could possibly spare into carrying the unconscious man to the cream-colored settee by the darkening windowsill.

"Also, his system will be slowing down, so he may acquire a little chill after overheating…the hyperthermia is what is making him feverish, his body is in overdrive." She exhaled, winded by carrying Boris' dead weight (even with Dieter's assistance it had turned out to be quite the loathsome task). "I do not think it is so severe as of yet that it is life-threatening; he has not been like this long, has he?"

The man looked briefly at Boris, still just as crumpled and wan as he had been when he had found him. It reminded Dieter of the porcelain dolls his sister used to collect when she was small, dead-looking creatures that stared blankly through him…as if he wasn't even there.

But the color was beginning to return to the man's face, slowly creeping into the edges of his countenance, whorls of pink curling beneath his cheeks.

Divya sighed as she pulled a sitting chair in front of the unconscious figure. "I will tend to him while you fetch the blankets, alright?"

Dieter nodded as the information he received slowly sunk into his gradually settling mind. "I see. I will be back in a moment, yes? And with some water for when he wakes, I expect…"

He began to turn around, and had already faced the door when the weary accentuated voice called after him. Once more, he rotated on his heel, focusing his attention solely on her. She smiled, the corners of her mouth softening as the gesture turned rather rueful. "Thank you, Dieter…you can safely admit to him when he wakes that you helped me save him."

He bowed his head with a small hint of a reciprocating grin on his rather austere expression, accepting her gratitude with the usual poise she had come to expect from him, and then promptly walked out of the room while Divya began to connect Boris to the heart monitor.

It was how she knew the situation would not unravel into complete chaos…Dieter was assured once more, and she could not have been anymore proud if she had saved the President of the United States.

* * *

It was two hours before any hope that he would wake began to take root in the back of Divya's mind.

At first, she had been optimistic that her treatment of the situation had gone well. Dieter's frantic concern had been appeased, and already Boris' skin had begun to retain a small portion of its color. But as she sat at his bedside, waiting, praying for some sign of life to manifest in his motionless form, she began to receive her own bout of worry.

Still restive, her hands fidgeted in her lap as she stared, unblinking, at the man before her. He had been practically dripping with ice packs before, stuffed conveniently under his arms, over his chest, sprawled over his thighs and under his neck; every five minutes, she would take his temperature, and was relieved to see that it was beginning to recede. After the first half hour, she had been able to remove half of the packs from him, and place a thin sheet over him instead as his body began to cool.

The saline seemed to be another material encouragement for his recovery. It slithered through the tubes and into his arm, and Divya could physically see the liquid enter his veins, but it was not enough for her.

"Is there…anything else we can do for him, Miss Katdare?" Dieter murmured beside her.

She seemed to stir from her thoughts, shaking her head as if to eliminate the irksome feeling from the back of her mind. The manservant sat in a chair on her right, his brow, though not altogether consumed by the panic it had been lost within before, still pinched with worry.

"Not until Hank arrives, Dieter," she replied softly, and reached for his shoulder, enclosing her hand in a reassuring manner. "Don't worry, my friend…he will live. I promise you."

He smiled transiently, but behind the comprehending gesticulation, there was the same dark ambiguity that hovered over Divya's own head.

* * *

"How is he?"

Divya turned and watched as Hank knelt beside the unconscious man, lying limp and unmoving on the settee; he had been listless, not giving any signs of stirring from his drug-induced oblivion, for over four hours, and Divya was allowing herself to lose hope again, especially as the color started to fade from his skin as the minutes slowly passed.

"Stable, but he hasn't revived." She replied.

Hank sighed, tracing Boris' indolent features with his pitying gaze. "Dieter told me it was an…overdose?"

"On cocaine. Apparently Boris has either become ironically addicted to the partying scene or he has been working overtime to diagnose his disease."

Hank's nostrils began to flare, his eyes flashing. "He's going to kill himself. Why won't the man listen to me?"

"He listens to no one, Hank. It is not your fault…I see that flicker of self-doubt in you; you cannot blame yourself for his mistakes. Besides, there is still the chance that he may have succeeded in killing himself…for now we must be patient and see, I suppose."

Divya's ears began to prick as she thought she had begun to hear a disconcerting beeping noise in the background, steadily increasing with the passing seconds. She whirled around, checking the monitor; just as she'd thought, the pace began to escalate as the beeping became more frantic.

"Hank…the monitor…it's speeding up."

"Did you start the saline treatment?"

"I hooked him up to the saline hours ago…"

Hank unraveled the stethoscope from around his neck as Divya hurriedly ripped open the obstructing shirt. Guiding the bell over Boris' bare chest, Hank's eyes began to widen.

"His heart, Divya…" He murmured, and looked up at her as he spoke the words she had been afraid to hear all night.

"_I think it might be failing."_

* * *

AN: I know it's short! I hope you'll forgive me; you're used to long, hearty chapters. But since I have to rely on the suspense of not revealing, just yet, if Boris will survive...I'm breaking it into two parts. This is part one. Part two will be out tomorrow.

This is almost done. I'm also updating Nocturne tomorrow as well...if you haven't read Nocturne, I'd recommend giving it a quick read! It's very, very different from this story...and it's Jill/Boris instead.

Anyway, thanks for reading!


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